The fans of the two Premier League teams which took the fourth and fifth spots to qualify for the Champions League on the final day of last season could not have experienced more contrasting emotions since.
Newcastle fans were if anything more positive about the future than their Chelsea counterparts, with the skin-of-their-teeth qualification after defeat to Everton proof that the light of the footballing gods was shining down on St James’ Park more than ever before.
They had ended their 56-year trophy drought by beating the eventual Premier League champions in March, as Eddie Howe continued to prove doubters wrong through dramatically improving his players, who – to a man – appeared to have been swept up in the sort of love and adoration bestowed upon footballers in a one-club city when things are going swimmingly.
Participation in Europe’s showcase next season would surely be enough to keep their best players while offering a massive carrot to new ones, very possibly from a higher pool of talent that had previously been off limits.
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A 2025/2026 title challenge may have been beyond them, but Champions League knockout away days while improving on their league position and winning another trophy will have been on most bucket lists. With a bit of luck, three or four top-level signings in key positions and the best striker in the world, many will have hoped for even more than that.
Add Joao Pedro, Bryan Mbeumo, Marc Guehi and James Trafford to the squad and pre-season predictions would currently be overloaded with Newcastle as dark-horse picks for the title, and – rightly or wrongly – manager Howe pinpointed as the weak link in an otherwise close to faultless set-up.
Anthony Elanga, Malick Thiaw, Aaron Ramsdale and Jacob Ramsey represent a hugely underwhelming climbdown after attempts to land that preferred quartet via several others who also told them where to go.
And whether it’s about the wages offered, ‘big club’ perception, the management or some other factor which persuaded their top targets to snub them in favour of alternative landing spots, the reality is that all of the progress made last season hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference in the transfer market for Newcastle. Despite what certain journalists would have you believe.
The players they have managed to sign – who may prove to be excellent additions, of course – have only joined because no-one else wanted them, and even Newcastle can’t lose a bidding war to themselves. So actually, thank f*** for Eddie Howe; he may actually be the best thing about them right now.
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They head into their first game of the season at Villa Park on Saturday having won one of their seven pre-season friendlies, swatting National League Carlisle aside 4-0, before losing to Celtic, Arsenal, a K-League XI and Atletico Madrid, while drawing with Tottenham and Espanyol. All while their £150m striker trains away from the squad, moping in the hope of forcing a move as they fail to land a suitable replacement whom they wanted to be a back-up less than a month ago.
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Newcastle United finished last season with a trophy and Champions League football – there was elation after probably the best year in the club’s modern history.
Three months on, their supporters are the most pessimistic in the Premier League.
Many Chelsea fans spent much of… pic.twitter.com/agZ9pJ1gUY
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) August 13, 2025
Chelsea’s frankly extraordinary uptick in optimism since will be making all of this particularly grating. They’ve completed the trophy set after teaching the European champions a lesson in the Club World Cup final, followed that with similarly dominant victories over Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan, while attracting all of their top targets to dramatically improve their squad with a summer net spend of just over £30m having sold a host of players, the vast majority of which had no hope of ever playing for them again.
While doubts over their ‘project’, which was a buzzword of mirth for the first two-and-half seasons of BlueCo’s reign at Stamford Bridge, have now turned to concern amongst rivals that they’re onto an absolute winner and are well set to challenge for major honours for the next decade, we’re left wondering what the Newcastle project even is.
Did they think Champions League qualification would cure all ills? Have they signed any players this summer who wouldn’t have joined them when the Saudi money first arrived four years ago? Chelsea, like Manchester City and Liverpool, know that in order to progress in a PSR world, you have to be a buying and selling club.
Newcastle aren’t either and need to figure out what they want to be in order to revert this slide into despair that isn’t entirely about The Red Cartel and the Premier League’s historic favouritism of the most successful clubs.
And even if that were the case, do something about it. Come up with a plan to challenge the establishment that’s a little more sophisticated than buying the best players because, for the foreseeable future at least, they’re not in a position to do that.
Newcastle are the Alexander Isak of the Premier League, with their transfer window amounting to a two-month sulk having not got their way.