Newcastle United will play Champions League football next season

Tell your ma you won't be home for tea.....you might be going to Italy!

Newcastle fans celebrated into the wee hours after securing a top 4 finish in the Premier League.

For the first time in 20 years The Magpies will play Champions League football.

Nick Pope ensured Newcastle booked their Champions League place with a game to spare as he denied Leicester a priceless victory in their bid for Premier League survival.

The Magpies' £10million summer signing kept out Timothy Castagne's volley in the second minute of stoppage time with his first save of the game to secure a 0-0 draw on a night when the home side battered at the door but were unable to find a way through.

Callum Wilson and Miguel Almiron were both denied by the woodwork, but a point was all their team needed to ensure their place among the continent's big boys for the first time in 20 years.

By contrast, Leicester, who are still two points adrift of safety, will head into their final-day clash with West Ham knowing their fate is not in their own hands.

Eddie Howe's men were lauded by a crowd of 52,152 on the final whistle, having secured Champions League football for just the third time in the club's history and way ahead of the schedule drawn up by the club's Saudi-backed owners when they took control in October 2021.

In some senses it proved to be a frustrating 90 minutes - it might have been more so had key midfielder Bruno Guimaraes seen red rather than yellow for a poor early challenge of Boubakary Soumare - but it was ultimately the bigger picture which mattered.

Howe was forced to make a last-minute change when, after he had taken part in the warm-up, midfielder Joelinton was unable to start and was replaced by Elliot Anderson.

Any fears the reshuffle might unsettle his team proved unfounded as they took the game by the scruff of the neck amid a party atmosphere at St James' Park, although Guimaraes was perhaps fortunate to escape with only a booking for his studs-up ninth-minute clash with Soumare.

The Magpies dominated possession but in the early stages were unable to find a telling final ball.

Almiron, who had made another high-octane start, fired over after cutting inside from the right and Anderson tested goalkeeper Daniel Iversen for the first time with a curling attempt.

Alexander Isak was seeing plenty of the ball down the left but sliced a long-range effort well wide as the Magpies piled forward repeatedly without ever really being able to summon up the required precision to make the pressure tell.

For their part, City attempted to hit Jamie Vardy and Kelechi Iheanacho long and early and, although they achieved a measure of success, they met with stubborn resistance from Fabian Schar and Sven Botman.

Wilson twice went close to his 19th goal of the season four minutes before the break when he stabbed a shot against a post and then saw Wilfred Ndidi clear his follow-up header off the line, while Almiron was similarly denied by the woodwork before Isak steered the rebound wide seconds later.

Wilson headed over from a Kieran Trippier corner in stoppage time after Iversen had misjudged the flight and the half ended goalless.

James Maddison entered the fray at the break as a replacement for Iheanacho, but the traffic continued to head very much in the direction of his team's goal, with Isak and Almiron menacing out wide, although the massed ranks of blue held impressively firm.

Iversen had to turn a 59th-minute Isak snapshot over his crossbar and block Sean Longstaff's 76th-minute drive with a foot, but it was the Foxes who almost snatched victory at the death when Pope was forced into his first save of the game to keep out Castagne's stoppage-time volley.

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe has admitted Champions League qualification was not even in his thoughts as he embarked upon the new Premier League campaign.

The Magpies secured a top-four finish and a return to the big stage for the first time since the 2002-03 season with a 0-0 draw against Leicester on Monday evening to complete a remarkable turnaround.

They were in severe danger of relegation when Howe took the helm in November 2021 but will now rub shoulders with the continent's elite next season.

A delighted Howe said: "This wasn't in our sights at that moment. We had escaped relegation impressively, from the position we were in.

"We were hopeful of improving and staying away from danger and growing the team to a position where maybe we could compete for Europe in a couple of seasons, so we've shot ahead of schedule.

"With that comes big challenges for the future, but when you're in these moments and there's an opportunity of something like this, you have to take it."

The club's Saudi-backed owners have ploughed in excess of £250million in the squad since buying out Mike Ashley, but have received an earlier than anticipated return on their investment.

Newcastle reached the Carabao Cup final in February only to lose to Manchester United at Wembley, but were not to be denied a place at Europe's top table.

Howe said: "The difficulty is there's no trophy. It's an amazing achievement, an amazing thing in terms of where we've come from in such a short space of time.

"But it feels difficult to celebrate it like you've won a league or something like that. It's right up there, of course it is. It's an amazing thing at a very special club.

Asked how he would celebrate, Howe added with a smile: "I don't know how I'll celebrate. I'll wait and see. I hope it's not with a tea and a biscuit."

St James' Park was bouncing at the final whistle and Howe, his staff and players performed a lap of honour, although the mood in the Leicester camp was very different.

The Foxes remain two points adrift of safety, although victory over West Ham on Saturday coupled with a draw for Everton at home to Bournemouth would keep them up on goal difference.

They did not muster a shot until stoppage time, when Magpies goalkeeper Nick Pope kept out Timothy Castagne's volley to deny them a priceless victory, but boss Dean Smith was defiant over his safety-first approach.

Smith said: "I make no apologies for the way we set up today. We haven't kept a clean sheet for too long and the reason we are where we are is because of that in my opinion.

"My mind was made up when I watched Newcastle play Brighton on Thursday, one of the best footballing teams in the Premier League this year, Brighton, and in that first 20, 25 minutes, they steamrollered them.

"We had to keep a clean sheet and hope, because we had to make sacrifices with our team sheet today and hope then we were still in the game.

"It almost worked exactly to plan, but the goalkeeper made a really good save in the 90th minute, which was our only shot, I think.

"If it's too little, too late, who knows? But we've taken it to Sunday now."

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