Newcastle star hopeful club earn ‘spot in Champions League’ next season

Newcastle United midfielder Bruno Guimaraes is expecting the club to “strengthen very well” this summer to help them to secure a spot in Europe.

The club’s Saudi-led takeover was completed earlier this season so they now have significant funds at their disposal.

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This was on show in January as they signed five players. Along with Guimaraes, they brought in Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Chris Wood and Matt Targett.

Newcastle have been able to move away from the bottom three in recent weeks. They went on a run of winning six games in seven in the league.

Eddie Howe’s side now sit 14th on the table on 31 points. They are nine points clear of the relegation zone.

Guimaraes has acknowledged that it was a “risk” to join Newcastle but he “believed in the project”:

“It was all very fast. In four, five days we solved everything. I had little time. I never hid my desire to play in the Premier League. It has always been my dream and my goal,” Guimaraes said (via Sport Witness).

“It was a risk, but I also believe in the project. The fans are passionate about the team, it’s different. We strengthened well. Next season I believe we will strengthen very well to seek, who knows, a spot in the Champions League, in the Europa League.

“From now on, it’s a team to compete to be the Premier League champions. I believe a lot in the project and I hope that everything works out as it was passed on to me.

“Taking the example of Manchester City, Agüero, Yaya Touré and David Silva were names enshrined in the club’s history because they believed in the project from the beginning. Here we come, me and Trippier, who came out of Atlético Madrid as a champion.”

Meanwhile, Newcastle boss Howe has vowed to take a cautious approach with key men Callum Wilson and Trippier as they prepare to step up their returns from injury:

“I’d say they’re on schedule from where they were given their respective injuries. But I wouldn’t say necessarily ahead of schedule.

“They’re both serious injuries, both enough to obviously be operated on and go through a very intense rehab period.

“Callum’s injury, you have to be very careful with, that we don’t push him back too quickly and he ends up injuring himself again because the Achilles/calf is a very delicate area of the body and you need to make sure it’s robust enough to withstand heavy load.

“Kieran’s is slightly different. [It’s] a bone injury and I think, touch wood, if he can come through the early stages of coming out in his boots and then progressing quite quickly, he’s one we could see back in action hopefully pretty soon.

“But with both injuries, I do think we have to be very cautious. We don’t want to re-injure the player.”