Newcastle United: Is the Champions League a Realistic Target?

Big stadiums. Passionate fans. Expensive players. Outspoken managers.

These are the features of the clubs that you tend to see competing in the Champions League these days. Linking these features with playing competitive European football has been a struggle, though, for one club that tends to fit the bill for a Champions League side.

That club is Newcastle United and they could very well be on their way to a return to the big time.

Not since 2003 has Newcastle seen the bright lights of Champions League football and, ever since that faithful qualification round loss at St. James' Park in 2003, things have been on a downward spiral.

A turnstile of managers, amongst other things, had left the club in turmoil for close to a decade and the club hit the lowest of the low in 2010 with relegation into the Championship. What fans have witnessed since then is somewhat of a revival of one of England's great clubs.

These six or so 'lost' seasons have seen millions spent on players and risks taken on managers just for the Toon to get back to the Champions League contending level they were once at. But not one of these moves eventually panned out. 

First off, we saw the addition of Patrick Kluivert from Barcelona, who lasted just one season, scoring a grand total of six goals. A year later Newcastle made another expensive splash, signing Michael Owen from Real Madrid in an attempt to combine his forces with stalwart Alan Shearer's for a return to Champions League football.

As you can expect, this didn't work out either.

Owen's tenure at Newcastle was littered with injury - the story of his career, really - and by the end of it he left on bad terms following the club's relegation.

Managers came and went as well, mostly on those same bad terms. Resignations, firings, mutual agreement. You name it and there was probably a manager who fell to that fate.

Thankfully, all this has come to a resounding stop in 2011/12.

Newcastle has settled on a manager, finally, with Alan Pardew having taken the reigns from Chris Hughton just over a year ago and the club hasn't looked back since.

No longer is Newcastle the unnecessary risk-taker trying to force its way back to the top, but instead it is organized and planned in its approach. You won't hear Newcastle's name seriously involved in any of these transfer rumors - unless it's on the selling side - but what you will see is that Newcastle already has an eleven filled with quality players.

From Coloccini at the back through to Demba Ba in front of goal, Newcastle has built a team worthy of Europe. As a result, they sit sixth in the Barclays Premier League, level on points with Arsenal [in fifth] and ahead of Liverpool.

This is the perfect time to make that move to vault Newcastle back to the top.

What Newcastle has now is, as I say, a well-built, young team. This isn't the case of a club kidding themselves into thinking that signing Michael Owen will completely turn things around. It is a club in the knowledge that it are on the verge of great success.

That one striker, that one winger (all completely affordable after the return received for Andy Carroll) would make such a difference. Call me crazy but, outside of van Persie - who is in a class of his own - I don't see much difference between Newcastle and Arsenal, a club currently featuring in the Champions League.

Making that big move now would make such a difference.

If Mike Ashley truly wants to rid himself of his bad reputation amongst the Newcastle faithful, spending now would do the trick.

Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov are two names that come to mind as being able to form a formidable partnership with Demba Ba and are both players who appear to be available. At the moment Newcastle is relatively thin outside of their starting eleven but  with the youth coming in (the likes of Haris Vuckic), these problems could soon be solved.

When questioned as a potential Champions League team I just say "Why not?" Newcastle has the league position to strike now and the talent present to do some damage. With that one transfer it becomes less of a question and closer to a certainty.

On the other hand, sticking to Pardew's 'blueprint' could lead to Europe as well. Pardew was recently quoted as saying "the guy’s worth about £36m – he ain’t coming here" about Eden Hazard, a player rumored as a possible transfer target.

Fair enough.

I'm not going to be the one to argue with Pardew's plan. It's worked so far and if he doesn't believe the big-money move would be successful - or even affordable - now then that's fine. Cheap talent has been Pardew's forte this season; case-in-point being Demba Ba and Yohan Cabaye. Adding a few more players from the same price and skill range would do Newcastle a world of good in their Champions League bid.

Newcastle is on its way up and has done it the right way. The Champions League would be the cherry on top and a realistic one at that.