Consecutive Champions League qualification is critical to entrenching our position - boosts our coffers, obviously, but also starves our rivals.
Hopefully, by qualifying relatively early this year, we should have more momentum with which to achieve that next year.
Doesn't really starve them if that money league is anything to go by. Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United were all not in it last season, yet were comfortably above us in terms of revenue. Just think how much further ahead they will be if they were in the competition and we're not.
But that's because they have had a decade (or more) to build a commercial operation predicated on regular European football and/or on-pitch success. The year we were relegated, Spurs (the least successful of the so-called 'big 6') were starting a run of THREE consecutive seasons in the Champions League, including a run to the final in 2019.
THAT'S what we're up against. That head-start, which they've all had.
When we've had a decade of relatively high league finishes, and multiple Champions League campaigns (and hopefully a trophy or two), we too will probably be able to cope financially with the odd season where we don't qualify for Europe.
But first, we need to build up the commercial operation that can only come from eating at the top table on a regular basis. This year's figures show we're making serious headway, but we probably need another couple of years of Champions League football for our figures to look close to theirs.
Qualify this season, and our figures next year will again be good - probably better than our first foray in the CL, due to an improved European coefficient.
It's horrible, but these clubs have built a moat based on the sort of long-term on-field success that we simply haven't had since the nineties. We've had chances along the way to take that step, and never made it. In the Little/Gregory era under Gregory, our repeated top 6 finishes under MON - but each time we've fallen away due to lack of investment to sustain that challenge. But now, for the first time, it feels like we're being managed by a group that will do whatever they possibly can to take that next step.
