Newcastle United have been warned they need to ensure they qualify for the Champions League again this season, or big players won’t be keen next summer.
That’s according to Sky Germany journalist Florian Schmidt Sommerfeld, who wasn’t impressed by the 8-0 win over Sheffield United in the slightest.
He covers that game today and says he still has his doubts about Eddie Howe’s side as he sees ‘too much instability’ in the team for them to get back into the Champions League next season.
Their performance in that competition has left him with ‘doubts’ and he points out that their display against AC Milan, a much more competent side than Sheffield United, was concerning.
He doesn’t believe Newcastle can produce the quality needed over long stretches and Milan proved they can be got at defensively as well.
That’s a game in which the Magpies ‘barely got away with it’ according to Sommerfeld and Milan were ‘superior in every way’, which should have the alarm bells ringing.
He thinks they’re struggling to transition from a defensive counter attack team to one that needs to be on the front foot and winning, and because of that he ‘can’t imagine them being in the Champions League again’.
That task isn’t being aided by the fact the Premier League’s big sides are mostly back to their best so far as well, making a top four spot even harder to achieve.
And that will be a problem for Newcastle as if they don’t have that to offer, then they ‘may have to open their wallets further’ to sign the top players from ‘the expensive shelf’ and lure them to ‘uncomfortable north-east of England’.
