The changes to the Champions League next season mean that finishing fifth in the Premier League could result in entry to Europe’s top competition giving Newcastle United one more chance to qualify via league position.
The fifth Champions League spot will be confirmed later in the season when all the coefficients are worked out, so as long as English clubs continue to do well in Europe this year following Manchester City‘s Champions League win and West Ham‘s Europa Conference League win, then it’s pretty much guaranteed that the Premier League will get the extra spot.
That means then, that Newcastle only need to finish fifth to retain Champions League football for a second season following last season’s fourth place finish.
Jamie Carragher has chosen his top six for this season’s Premier League
It’s going to be a much tougher task for Eddie Howe and his side this term as it’s expected that Liverpool and Chelsea will have much better seasons than the last one. Liverpool did bounce back towards the end and made a late charge for Champions League, but for a long time they were terrible.
Chelsea never got out of first gear all season, going through managers like they were going out of fashion and throwing half a billion pounds at the transfer market to try and buy their way out of trouble. Now with Mauricio Pochettino at the helm, many people are expecting Chelsea to do much better this season.
Jamie Carragher is one of those people. Speaking on The Fan Debate on Sky Sports’ Overlap YouTube channel, Carragher gave his prediction for the top six in the Premier League come next May, saying: “I’ll go Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham.”
Even though it currently looks like Harry Kane is staying put at Tottenham, I still don’t see them getting into the top six like Carragher has. I definitely back Newcastle to finish ahead of Tottenham, there’s just something not right at that club lately.
Newcastle have a huge task ahead of them this season
Newcastle not featuring on Carragher’s list doesn’t surprise me too much, I’ve still not made my mind up if we’ll reach the promised land again this season, I think the league is going to be much tougher, but I think Aston Villa pose more of a threat to us than Tottenham, so maybe they sneak that sixth spot and we have to make do with seventh – which is by no means a bad thing.
As I’m sure I’ve said before, Newcastle were never meant to reach the Champions League as soon as we did, we were supposed to build up to it, but now we here there’s a weight of expectation that we may not be ready to carry.
On the flips side, seeing how the lads performed in pre-season along with the signings Howe has made so far, it’s certainly not out of reach.
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