Newcastle must pray for Arteta, Keane or Aguero rather than £10m Sutton or Liverpool flops

Matthew Stead
Abel Xavier, Newcastle players celebrating and Mikel Arteta

The Champions League lure has attracted Roy Keane, Sergio Aguero and Rafael van der Vaart. But Newcastle must learn from Blackburn and Leicester’s mistakes.

Newcastle have qualified for the Champions League for the first time since the 2003/04 season, opening a few transfer avenues money could not previously buy for the Magpies.

That can be of huge benefit to teams either returning to Europe’s premier competition or qualifying for the first time in well over a decade, as Man Utd, Liverpool and Manchester City have previously shown.

But it can also represent an opportunity wasted, as Blackburn and Leicester will attest.

And then there are those sides who had mixed results in the market but at least enjoyed the ride, like Chelsea, Everton and even Newcastle themselves.

It remains to be seen which category Newcastle fall into, but here are the previous examples they can either embrace or ignore.

 

Man Utd (1993/94)
Premier League champions in 1992/93

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign in 24 years

Signed: Roy Keane (£3.75m, Nottingham Forest)

In the knowledge that Man Utd had built on their most recent English league championship with European Cup glory the following season, Alex Ferguson sought to emulate that 1960s journey with his early 1990s vintage.

Aston Villa and Norwich had been held off as Man Utd secured the first title of the Premier League era, with the champions almost instantly turning their focus to Roy Keane. Their challengers this time were Blackburn and Arsenal and despite a handshake agreement with Rovers, a home visit from Ferguson to Cork delivered the British record signing.

Keane won 13 trophies in 12 tumultuous years at Old Trafford, including the same Champions League Man Utd used to lure him in the first place.

 

Blackburn (1995/96)
Premier League champions in 1994/95

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign ever

Signed: Matty Holmes (£1.2m, West Ham), Lars Bohinen (£700,000, Nottingham Forest)

Blackburn still struggled to open previously locked transfer doors with either their status as Premier League champions or the promise of European football in 1995. There was talk of Zinedine Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff but every first-team signing came from English top-flight rivals, with neither Matty Holmes nor Lars Bohinen making lasting impressions.

Chris Coleman subsequently joined from Crystal Palace in December, a few weeks after Rovers closed their disappointing Champions League run with a group-stage exit. That he still managed to make more appearances that season than both Holmes and Bohinen sums up how miserably Blackburn failed to capitalise on their position, Newcastle usurping them as Man Utd’s closest contenders.

READ MORE: Top ten weirdest signings by Premier League champions

 

Newcastle (1997/98)
Runners-up in the 1996/97 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign ever

Signed: Shay Given (£1.5m, Blackburn), Temuri Kestbaia (free, AEK Athens), Jon Dahl Tomasson (£2.2m, Heerenveen), Stuart Pearce (free, Nottingham Forest), Alessandro Pistone (£4.3m, Inter), John Barnes (free, Liverpool), Ian Rush (free, Leeds)

That is how to take advantage of new-found glamour. Newcastle grabbed a place in the Champions League qualifying phase when the Premier League was first granted a second spot in 1997, and they used it to attract all manner of players from continental talents to unattached domestic veterans.

The capture of Shay Given settled the Newcastle goalkeeping department for the next decade, while Temuri Ketsbaia was an exotic, enigmatic, exciting unknown added to a positively eclectic squad.

It was the Georgian was actually scored the last-minute goal which sent Newcastle into the Champions League group stage, where they subsequently beat Barcelona and Dynamo Kyiv – Barnes and Pearce putting Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov to shame at St James’ Park – but could not reach the knockout phase.

 

Chelsea (1999/2000)
Third place in the 1998/99 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign ever

Signed: Didier Deschamps (£3m, Juventus), Mario Melchiot (free, Ajax), Chris Sutton (£10m, Blackburn), Jes Hogh (£300,000, Fenerbahce), Gabriele Ambrosetti (£3.5m, Vicenza), Emerson Thome (£2.5m, Sheffield Wednesday), George Weah (loan, Milan)

With a third Champions League route opened up for Premier League sides, Chelsea strolled through ahead of Leeds. And a continental rebrand spearheaded by Ruud Gullit, Gianfranco Zola, Marcel Desailly, Albert Ferrer, Pierluigi Casiraghi and Gianluca Vialli was ramped up into overdrive.

Chelsea did not ignore the domestic scene, but both Chris Sutton and Emerson Thome spent just one full season at Stamford Bridge; Didier Deschamps and Jes Hogh did the same in fleeting visits. By contrast, Mario Melchiot and Gabriele Ambrosetti stayed just long enough to sample a brief taste of Roman Abramovich’s era.

An indulgent loan of Ballon d’Or winner George Weah produced Premier League goals against Spurs and Liverpool, as well as crucial strikes in Chelsea’s eventual FA Cup win. But the Blues’ thrilling run to the Champions League quarter-finals was largely built on the foundations they had laid long before their qualification.

 

Liverpool (2001/02)
Third place in the 2000/01 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign in 17 years

Signed: John Arne Riise (£4m, Monaco), Milan Baros (£3.2m, Banik Ostrava), Chris Kirkland (£6m, Coventry), Jerzy Dudek (£4.85m, Feyenoord), Nicolas Anelka (loan, PSG), Abel Xavier (£750,000, Everton)

It seems unfathomable that half of the players Liverpool signed in preparation for their first European Cup campaign since 1985 would be starting the actual Champions League final for them four years later. Chris Kirkland, Nicolas Anelka and Abel Xavier unfortunately did not complete such a ludicrous journey; John Arne Riise, Milan Baros and Jerzy Dudek remain fondly remembered for the part they played on that Istanbul evening.

Riise and Dudek were almost immediately integrated into the starting line-up, while Anelka took tentative steps back into the Premier League with a fruitful loan spell. The faces of Baros and Kirkland never quite fit. Abel Xavier paid his £750,000 fee back by boiling Everton p*ss and scoring in one of the all-time great Champions League knockout ties.

 

Everton (2005/06)
Fourth place in the 2004/05 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign in 35 years

Signed: Simon Davies (£3.5m, Spurs), Per Kroldrup (£5m, Udinese), Mikel Arteta (£2.8m, Real Sociedad), Phil Neville (£3.5m, Manchester United)

“That could have changed what we did at Everton – if we had got into the group stages with the money that was available,” David Moyes lamented in 2012 of the time the Toffees cracked the glass ceiling without managing to smash it.

The Scot went on to suggest “hot balls” had given them a “stinker” of a draw in qualifying against eventual semi-finalists Villarreal, while claiming that UEFA “were all delighted when we were knocked out” as they didn’t want five English teams in the group stages.

Everton supporters still share that frustration with the officiating of Pierluigi Collina in the Italian’s final game before retirement. But their battling fourth-place finish in 2005, giving UEFA a unique headache by finishing ahead of Champions League winners Liverpool, was not entirely wasted. Mikel Arteta’s loan was made permanent and Phil Neville made what would become an oft-travelled journey to Goodison Park from Old Trafford.

The less said about Simon Davies and particularly Per Kroldrup, the better. At least Everton rebounded from their qualification disappointment in style, signing Andy van der Meyde a week after Villarreal broke their hearts.

 

Tottenham (2010/11)
Fourth place in the 2009/10 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign in 49 years

Signed: Sandro (£8m, Internacional), William Gallas (free, Arsenal), Rafael van der Vaart (£8m, Real Madrid), Steven Pienaar (£3m, Everton)

Perfect. No notes. The unknown quantity in Sandro. The experienced head in William Gallas. The opportunist grab of Rafael van der Vaart. Every box was ticked.

It was a surprisingly reserved summer from Daniel Levy and Harry Redknapp as Spurs celebrating finally reaching Europe’s top table by resisting the temptation to change too much of what was quite clearly working. Luka Modric and Ledley King were signed to new contracts and the focus was instead on adding a couple of new ingredients to a successful dish instead of changing the recipe entirely.

Rafael van der Vaart

 

Manchester City (2011/12)
Third place in the 2010/11 Premier League season

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign in 43 years

Signed: Gael Clichy (£10m, Arsenal), Stefan Savic (£15m, Partizan), Sergio Aguero (£36m, Atletico Madrid), Samir Nasri (£24m, Arsenal), Owen Hargreaves (free, Man Utd), Costel Pantilimon (loan, Politehnica Timișoara)

Wafting money under the noses of anyone who might take notice at Arsenal was a difficult habit for Manchester City to break, and a crutch they fell back on once again when putting together a side capable of European domination. But even with the experience of Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy, they could not navigate the Champions League group stages.

A knackered Owen Hargreaves hardly helped, while the remarkably large Costel Pantilimon was never designed to be more than a back-up for Joe Hart.

But the pièce de résistance was club-record signing Sergio Aguero, who joined from Atletico Madrid with the intention of “fighting every year to win major trophies”. A personal haul of 12 in a decade agonisingly did not include a Champions League winner’s medal, with his status as the club’s all-time record goalscorer a decent consolation.

 

Leicester (2016/17)
Premier League champions in 2015/16

Qualified for Champions League – first European Cup campaign ever

Signed: Ron-Robert Zieler (£3m, Hannover), Luis Hernandez (free, Sporting Gijon), Raul Uche (undisclosed, Rayo Vallecano), Nampalys Mendy (£13m, Nice), Ahmed Musa (£16m, CSKA Moscow), Bartosz Kapustka (£2.5m, Cracovia), Islam Slimani (£28m, Sporting CP), Wilfred Ndidi (£17m, Genk)

Leicester made the absolute most of their time in the sun, breaking their transfer record three times in 54 days, signing a potential Euro 2016 breakout star and adding a more continental flavour to a squad which simultaneously flirted with Premier League relegation and reached the Champions League quarter-finals.

Even the sole success among those deals – the mid-season capture of the wonderful Wilfred Ndidi – has been tainted by the passage of time, as the Nigerian will accompany the Foxes on their likely descent into the Championship. But Leicester had one shot with a Champions League budget and they damn well enjoyed it.

Newcastle United Roy Keane