Unai Emery makes a claim about Newcastle and the Champions League

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Newcastle United will not be playing any form of European competition this season.

Clearly, that will be a huge disappointment to a club playing in the Champions League last season.

Indeed, while Newcastle fell at the first hurdle in Europe’s elite club competition, it’s not as if they embarrassed themselves.

But for a hugely controversial handball decision against Tino Livramento away at Paris Saint-Germain, perhaps Eddie Howe’s side could have gone further.

Still, surely few would doubt the added strain of competing in Europe had an impact on Howe’s squad.

Whether or not you attribute the busier schedule to the freakish injury crisis at the club last season, it surely cannot have helped.

As a result, Newcastle struggled to compete across European and domestic competitions, and a certain Unai Emery took note.

Unai Emery now makes claim about Newcastle and the Champions League

The man PIF originally wanted to replace Steve Bruce before appointing Howe will lead Aston Villa into the Champions League this season.

Interestingly, he wants Villa to avoid the same mistakes Newcastle made when it came to trying to balance both their European and domestic campaigns.

“Last year Newcastle were playing in the Champions League, two years ago they were in the top four, but they didn’t get it last year for different reasons,” he said (via Reuters).

“We want to avoid some circumstances that could lead us the same way like Newcastle or other teams in the past.”

Newcastle know the Champions League is a long way off

At some point, the ambition at Newcastle will surely be to get back into the Champions League. They certainly didn’t disgrace themselves last time out, even in a particularly difficult group.

Still, people behind the scenes at the club are believed to be stressing that regular qualification for the tournament is still a long way off, such are the improvements that need to be made both on and off the pitch.

With sections of the ownership reportedly frustrated about some of the financial rules stopping them spending huge amounts of money, getting back to that level will obviously take time.