I'd love for us to win the UEFA cup. It's not the cup it was, but it still carries much heritage. Seeing 'our legend' King lift that beautiful looking trophy in Scotland (Am I right thats where the final will be hold?), would make 2007 for us...for us...and for our captain...he deserves all the success he will hopefully get with us, he's an inspirational-dynamo of a player and captain! A true leader and gentlemman by example, I don't know where we'd be without him, and he knows and appreciates us too.

Ive felt like this all along. I think we would have struggled against most CL teams, and though not an "Everton", we would have gone out at some stage. We def wouldn't have been seen as favourites as we are now. A nice feeling I must admit:grin:

yaeh cl would have been a bit to soon. We have a huge chance of going far in the uefa cup
coys

aren't we all forgetting something here? If we qualify for the CL the calibre of player that we can attract goes up a notch which benefits our chances of success across the board.

Yeah but we don't have the pulling power for top players - yet!!! We need to start winning things.

No, indeed not - it is much more difficult to win, these days...:wink: .

I think we can win it BUT remember that Werder Bremen and other good CL teams will be joining the fray!

the more I read on this topic the more annoyed I'm getting - you think King, Dawson, Robbo, Hudd, Lennon, Berby et all will hang around if we don't qualify for CL in the next few years? They will all be GONE and we'll be relying on more youngsters filling their places so we'll basically become a feeder club for the G14.

The failed teams from the Champions League joining the fray will not be up for it like our team or fans are.

They will think they are too big for the UEFA Cup which is why I dont see them being as much of a threat as say Ajax or Feyenord

King and Robinson would stick around. They have a different, pleasantly old-fashioned attitude.

But your key phrase is "in the next few years". I think that's right. As long as we're competing most years in the UEFA Cup, we have decent runs in the domestic cups and we are contending for a CL place, most of these players will stick around for a few years - two, perhaps three - in the hope that we can get over that hurdle. They're playing for a good manager, for a well-managed club and in front of full houses. The players you have listed also all have promising international careers. So most of them will probably show some patience. But only some.

I don't see it as an emergency. More of an aspiration.

It's not necessary to be in the Champions League to sign or keep top players. It helps of course, but I'd say that for example Owen, Duff, Martins and Emre are Champions League level players and they have all signed for at a time when Newcastle was not in the Champions League.

To most players it's more about the money than it is about whether they're in the Champions League or not.