Newcastle United defender Dan Burn (Image: Owen Humphreys/PA)
Newcastle United defender Dan Burn (Image: Owen Humphreys/PA)
WHO are Newcastle United most looking forward to playing against next season? Barcelona? Bayern Munich? Borussia Dortmund? Maybe a revenge mission against Paris St Germain?
The list of potential Champions League opponents is tantalising. After last weekend, though, Dan Burn admits he is most excited by the prospect of something much closer to home. Born and bred on the black-and-white side of the North-East, the Magpies defender cannot wait for the return of the derby day against Sunderland.
“I want to play against the best teams, so I'd love to play against Madrid, Barcelona,” said Burn, after Newcastle’s return to the Champions League was confirmed despite a final-day defeat to Everton. “That’s why you want to play Champions League football. It’ll be exciting.
“But it’ll be good to even see Sunderland getting back to the Premier League. It’s such a weird thing because I’m really excited about it.
“I shouldn’t be, but those were the games when I was a kid. The derby days were the first fixtures I’d look for when they came out. So, I wouldn’t say that I’m happy for them coming up, but I am happy that we get the derbies back.”
While Sunderland will be looking to re-establish themselves in the Premier League next season, Newcastle’s goal will be to improve on a campaign that is surely the best in living memory.
Not only did the Magpies end a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy, they also qualified for the Champions League for the second time in three seasons. As an added bonus, there were also historic wins at the Emirates and Old Trafford along the way.
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Taking another step forward next season will not be easy, but there is a strong determination to make significant transfer investments this summer and Newcastle’s squad should be stronger next term than it was this year.
Lifting silverware back in March was a historic achievement. The challenge facing the Magpies now is to become serial winners.
“I don’t think we’re far away from challenging at the top,” said Burn. “The gaffer has mentioned that we’ve not strengthened in the last few seasons, so it'll probably be a big summer to add players and sort of keep it fresh.
“It’s probably just going to be that change of mentality where we really get that belief that we should be up there.
“It'd be great to have a good Champions League run and I'm sure that he would love to win another cup. I feel like now that we've won that first cup, it’s sort of broken the seal a bit and now we feel like we can really do that again.”
This has not just been a breakthrough season domestically for Burn, it has also seen the Blyth-born defender make his mark at international level.
Having made his England debut under Thomas Tuchel in March’s World Cup qualifying win over Albania, Burn finds himself back in the squad for next month’s qualifying game with Andorra and home friendly against Senegal.
This time next year, the expectation is that England will be preparing for the World Cup finals in North America, and while Burn was not even part of the conversation ahead of last summer’s Euros in Germany, there is every chance he will be contending for a spot on the plane to the US, Mexico and Canada.
For a player that started in non-league with Blyth Town and Blyth Spartans, while working part-time at Asda, and also spent time with Darlington prior to turning professional, that would be quite some career transition.
“I said to get that first England call was a sort of dream come true,” said Burn. “Now, I just want to keep trying to tick these camps off, so I’m really happy that I made it again I just want to try and get some more caps, more minutes and sort of take it from there.”