Danny Murphy shares whether Newcastle will finish in the top four this season

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Former Liverpool star Danny Murphy has had his say on whether he feels Newcastle United have what it takes to finish in the Premier League’s top four again this season.

Ahead of the new season which gets underway tomorrow with Burnley v Manchester City, the BBC asked their 26 football pundits to predict who will be the Premier League‘s top four come May.

Newcastle did feature on some top four predictions, albeit just four of 26, but at least Eddie Howe‘s lads are still in the mix.

Danny Murphy wouldn’t be surprised if Newcastle bag a top four spot

Danny Murphy was one of the pundits who explained his thinking on why Newcastle miss out and by the sounds of it the Magpies were very close to making the cut.

“Newcastle are on their way forward so this is not a criticism of them,” said Murphy “If they make the top four again it wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t think they will.

“The main reason I see them dropping off a bit in the Premier League is their Champions League fixtures – the intensity and huge physicality they play with means playing that way twice a week will be hard. They have made some really good signings, don’t get me wrong, but I still think they are short of a centre-half or, ideally, two if they have any injuries there.”

It’s hard to disagree with what he’s saying. We definitely do need at least one more centre-back, our lack of depth in that position has already been exposed with Fabian Schar likely to miss out on the game against Aston Villa on Saturday and Jamaal Lascelles most likely to be on in his place.

Newcastle’s intensity could be their undoing this season

As Murphy says, Newcastle’s intense style of football could bite them in the backside this season with them having to play twice a week.

Eddie Howe has done a good job building a squad that could potentially have two strong starting elevens to mitigate that, but Newcastle are still a couple of signings short of making that a solid reality as things stand.

There are still a couple of weeks left in the transfer window and Eddie Howe has stated that he wants a couple more players in before it slams shut, so if he’s able to bring in the right players in the right positions then Newcastle could find themselves back in people’s thoughts for top four.