NEWCASTLE UNITED boss Eddie Howe does not accept that the return of Champions League football to St James’ Park came too early for the club.

After Amanda Staveley’s consortium completed its takeover in October 2021, the Magpies drew up a five-year blueprint which included a place at European football’s top table, although last season’s remarkable surge to a top-four Premier League finish served up that goal way ahead of schedule.

Head coach Howe freely admits the club over-achieved in muscling its way into the big time, and the current campaign has proved significantly more testing with injuries taking their toll on his squad.

However, asked on the eve of tomorrow’s league trip to Chelsea if they had set the bar too high, Howe said: “I don’t think I can look at it that way.

“We were delighted to qualify for the Champions League. There was no part of me that was thinking, ‘We’re not ready for this’ or, ‘It’s too early’.

“You have to grab the opportunity when it’s there and we did. But of course with that comes the expectation and then you have to deal with that. We have to do better at dealing with that. This season has been a challenge.”

Newcastle’s first Champions League adventure in two decades proved short-lived when a 2-1 home defeat by AC Milan in their final group fixture saw them exit Europe altogether despite a famous 4-1 victory over Paris St Germain earlier in the competition.

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That disappointment was compounded by a difficult run of results around the turn of the year which also saw them slip out of the Carabao Cup at the quarter-final stage, when they lost on penalties at Stamford Bridge, and fall further off the pace in the league.

Manchester United's weekend win over Everton means they head into tomorrow's game seven points adrift of the top six with 11 games to go, with last weekend's win over Wolves having taken their points tally to 40 for the campaign.

For much of Mike Ashley’s tenure on Tyneside, that represented the only real target and the air of frustration among some fans is perhaps a measure of how far the club has come in a short time.

Howe said: “Football moves on very quickly, so targets move on, images of your own team move on within minutes, it seems, these days.

“We’re well aware of where we are and where we want to be and the team that we want to be, and there’s an air of frustration ourselves.

“But in the back of your head, you have to have perspective and you have to have reality and you have to think of the challenges we’ve faced this year, so we’re trying to manage all those things while trying to drive the team forward because there’s no point doing anything other than looking for growth in your team.”