Simon Jordan's message to Saudi PIF on the huge task facing Newcastle United

Newcastle United arguably defied expectations by reaching the knockout phase of the Champions League this season.

The Magpies entered the competition with the lowest coefficient score of all of this season's participants, but they gave an exceptionally good account of themselves right up until the 45th minute of the Round of 16 second leg in Barcelona.

Newcastle were handed a brutal reality check by Barcelona as they romped to a 7-2 win on Wednesday night. But instead of being all doom and gloom about it, there's a stark reality we as fans have to face up to.

It's a reality that Simon Jordan hammered home in an epic rant on talkSPORT on Thursday in which he called on Newcastle's owners to stop stalling on the things that could help them bridge the gap to the top.

Simon Jordan on Newcastle's big challenge

Simon Jordan may be a divisive figure, but love him or hate him, he just tells it as it is.

His latest rant about the problems facing Newcastle and PIF in their ambitions to be an elite club is spot on, explaining how we must "massively punch above our weight" if we're to break the 'big six' and become a top club in Europe by 2030, as CEO David Hopkinson boldly targeted in a recent interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z70-IHL8stA

"The challenge for them is: How do Newcastle United square this circle of having the idea of having the world's richest owners?

"Having this marvellous fanbase that are - not demanding success - but wanting it so much and obviously we saw that last year when they won the League Cup.

"And how do they do it? What are they, ninth in the league? Who is in front of them who should not be in front of them on paper, perhaps Aston Villa, perhaps Brentford and Everton?

"Other than that, where is the argument, what can Newcastle do? They've got to punch massively above their financial weight to break into the top six, so really and truly what we are talking with Newcastle being ninth in the Premier League, is if they go past Brentford and Everton and finish seventh or sixth, they've done their job."

He then went on to call out the ownership for dawdling on doing what needs to be done, insisting any manager, whether it's Howe or a big name like Luis Enrique, need greater tools to work with if we're to consistently compete at the top.

"They have got the moniker of having the world's richest owners, but they have got the backdrop...the commercial reality (is) they cannot go pound-for-pound with these boys who are spending £250m every transfer window.

"They can't keep their best players, because their best players are going to legacy clubs like Liverpool. So what do they do? The only thing they can do is do something that they should have done and what they should be doing now, which is build a new stadium. Increase the capacity of the stadium, increase the revenues, get some more opportunities to be able to monetise themselves better.

"That is the only way Newcastle can achieve anything vaguely resembling what their CEO said about being a dominant force in 2030. That is it, end of discussion.

"You can bring in Luis Enrique if you want, you can bring in the reputed best managers in European football. Unless they are given the tools to work with, they are not going to do anything better than Eddie Howe is doing."

It's time we saw some movement from the top

This year will mark the fifth 'canniversary' of the takeover, and it feels like we're no closer to getting a new stadium or training ground than we were then.

There's been talk of progress being made on the training ground, but that's all gone quiet. The stadium announcement feels more dead than Lewis Miley's leg. There are sponsorship opportunities that have been filled.

The club is leaving money on the table, and we can't help but wonder how David Hopkinson can say with a straight face that we're going to be a force by 2030 when it's going to take longer than that to get the infrastructure in place if they started building today.