Getting Toon into top Euro comp is key SAYS
ALAN PARDEW is desperate for former club Newcastle to qualify for the Champions League and not have to settle for the consolation prize of Europa League football next season.
Because the 61-year-old knows from painful experience the difference between the two competitions.
Eleven years ago, a run of six successive wins from midMarch catapulted his Toon side into top-four contention.
Even owner Mike Ashley was rubbing his hands at the prospect of the Magpies dining at Europe’s top table.
But three defeats in the last four games shattered Geordie dreams and ultimately proved the beginning of the end for Pardew.
“Qualifying for the Champions League is a gamechanger,” he said. “We fell just short in 2012 when we lost our final game at Everton.
“It was still an outstanding achievement but we paid a high price for that Goodison Park defeat.
“I know for a fact Mike Ashley would have given me significant money to invest had we been playing Champions League football.
“And one or two players who were looking to move on would have wanted to stay.” Newcastle’s thumping 4-1 win over Brighton means they’ll be dining at Europe’s top table if they beat relegationhaunted Leicester tomorrow night.
No last-day nerve-jangling for Howe, unlike his Newcastle predecessor 11 years ago. Pardew, now back in this country after spells in Bulgaria and Greece, regards the subsequent Europa League campaign as a bitter-sweet experience.
He added: “Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed our Europa League campaign, reaching the quarter-finals before narrowly losing to Benfica.
“But our league form badly suffered that year, a bit like what’s happened to West Ham this season. The club didn’t invest the way it would have done had we been in the Champions League and the squad became very stretched.
“I look back now on some of the teams I put out in the cup competitions and they were nowhere near good enough to represent Newcastle.
“The difference between finishing fourth and fifth was – and still is – incredible. You either go to the next level or fight on several fronts with a lesser squad.”
Following the Saudi takeover, Newcastle are a very different club from the days when Pardew worked for Ashley.
Despite European football in 2012-13, Pardew’s popularity plummeted and halfway through the following season, he quit for Crystal Palace.
“It was a decision I made in my own interests but also in the interests of the club,” he says.
Unlike Pardew, Eddie Howe won’t be hamstrung in the transfer market irrespective of their European battleground next term.
But their league position will shape the club’s immediate future.
“Eddie’s side is technically better than the one I had,” he added. “And he will be given the resources to compete both at home and in Europe.
“There is a very different atmosphere at St James’ Park these days and that’s really helped Eddie. But he’s been the architect of his own success.
“The job he’s done on its own warrants the great support he is getting from the fanbase even without the feel-good factor of the new ownership.”