"Hopefully, we get as many points as possible and we can beat our target from last year which was 44 points. There was just relief that we got it over the line as quickly as we did. A club of this stature, the target shouldn't be just to finish above the relegation zone but at the minute that is where we’re at. We have to deal with that as players, coaching staff and as fans who support the football club but that isn’t the ambition in the dressing room. From a lot of the players we don’t just want to be fighting to beat relegation every season, we want to be as high as possible and getting up towards that top six or top eight positions in the league. But it was just a relief and get it over the line so we have two games and hopefully we can finish around where we finished last year.
"We've proven as a squad now that we are capable of performing in the Premier League on a regular basis around that mid-table mark but if you want to stretch and get into those higher positions and challenge and compete against the better the teams then you obviously need investment. As players you know that you want to play with better players. You don't just want to sit here and say 'we're happy with what we've got', we always want to improve and get better, play with better players who come in to improve the team and improve yourself.
"No one has the right to be a big club but you have to look at the infrastructure from the football club from 20 or 30 years ago. You have a football club which has a stadium which I think is in top 15 in Europe in terms of capacity, we had 50,000 fans every week in the Championship, we have it in the Premier League, we've had it for three years now since I've been here - full houses every game. It's becoming a more global club not just in Europe but around the world with the sponsors that we have now so it is growing with that marketing stature.
"It's notorious for the fans being as passionate as they are and the following we get home and away and the manager we have got here one of the best in the world - it speaks for itself, I don't think you have to explain it too much to the people who are educated. I think if you look at it, the whole aspect of it, it has the potential to be a big club but at the minute, for whatever reason, it's not quite at those levels that is was in the past and for those things that you need for that is something that the players and staff here cannot influence. It's one of those things that hopefully in times to come we can become the club that we were before.
"So just because you finish fifth five or six years ago, doesn't mean you're going to come anywhere near that this season or next season - every season is different, growing and becoming better but I think especially as we finished 10th last season in our first season back, to have a second season of almost consolidation really - finishing mid-table, it can't be overlooked because when you look at other teams like Burnley, they finished seventh last year but were struggling below us. You have big clubs - West Ham, Bournemouth, Southampton, in and around us so it can't be taken for granted just because we're Newcastle. It's a good achievement, it shows just what a good job he has done."