Newcastle United

Newcastle United: Journalist claims no Champions League will be a big problem

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Image for Newcastle United: Journalist claims no Champions League will be a big problem

Aaron Stokes has admitted on the Everything is Black and White podcast that having no Champions League football will hold Newcastle United back.

Despite being supposedly one of the richest clubs in the game, Newcastle have certainly not had everything their own way this summer, having only bought Matt Targett for £12m, who was of course, on loan at St James’ Park last season.

Thus far, they have failed in their attempt to land either Sven Botman or Hugo Ekitike, with the former reportedly keen on playing in the Champions League once again after his debut in the competition last season.

With this in mind, Stokes believes that having no Champions League football will be a big obstacle for the Magpies to overcome.

He said: “It’s going to be a big problem, to be honest, because look, Newcastle are the richest club in the world, there’s no secret of that, it’s a great project, you look at what Wor Flags have done to turn it into a great advert for the city and the club. But the cold hard facts of it are they’re still a mid-table club as of this minute.

Will Newcastle make a signing this week?

Yes!

Yes!

No!

No!

“Yes, the potential is there to go further and kick on maybe next season or in the next two or three seasons, but AC Milan are offering Botman, right now, Champions League football; Moussa Diaby at Bayer Leverkusen has spoken about his dream of playing Champions League football – he can get that this summer if he stays there.

“Newcastle fans know this, I think the club know this – that they’ve got a great sales pitch in front of them, but without that sort of European football right now, we could be waiting two or three windows before they get proper serious talents through the door.”

TIF Thoughts on Newcastle transfer plans…

PIF may have been thinking they could use the atmosphere which was on display for their last home game of the season against Arsenal and how Newcastle finished last season to bring in more top players, but that hasn’t been the case thus far.

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How well do you remember Newcastle's January transfer window? An easy one to start with: where did Newcastle sign Bruno Guimaraes from?

Newcastle did a great job in January convincing Bruno Guimaraes to join the club when they were embroiled in a relegation scrap, but now with the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Milan sniffing around their targets, the reality of the transfer market is starting to look a lot more difficult than many may have expected.

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