Alan Pardew immediately set his sights on attempting to qualifying for the Champions League next season after Newcastle United narrowly missed out on a place at European football's top table.
A 3-1 defeat at Everton on Sunday brought the curtain down on an impressive Premier League campaign for Pardew's side, who secured a Europa League place by claiming fifth spot, their best finish for eight years.
Newcastle ended up four points adrift of a top-four Champions League place, but Pardew is keen to build on a season of undoubted progress.
"It was always going to be difficult coming here, but looking at the bigger picture, we've had a good season because we have a group of players who've all been in it together," he said.
"To win 19 games with a goal difference of just plus five shows the spirit's there to win close games.
"What we have to do now is to try and push on and achieve those 21 wins next season that will get us a Champions League spot.
"We congratulate Arsenal and Spurs who deserved to finish above us, but we've made a huge leap forward this time, and I hope next season will have the same feel about it."
Pardew hopes to add two or three new faces in the summer, but he admits it will be just as important to keep his 'blue chip' performers -- with Cheick Tiote, Papiss Demba Cisse, Yohan Cabaye and Demba Ba all attracting interest.
"The players have had a great season, so we've got a job on to keep our best ones," Pardew said. "We're vulnerable to the Champions League teams and we'll have to do our best to keep our best players."
John Heitinga's close-range header added to first-half goals from Steven Pienaar and Nikica Jelavic -- the Croatian international's 11th in 13 starts since a January move from Rangers -- sealed a seventh-place finish for Everton.
Newcastle earned a consolation through Tony Hibbert's late own goal, while Everton substitute Tim Cahill was red-carded on the final whistle after clashing with Newcastle midfielder Cabaye.
Despite finishing above local rivals Liverpool for the first time in seven years, Toffees manager David Moyes said: "It wasn't added incentive to finish above Liverpool. We just wanted to finish as high as we could.
"I don't think you can celebrate finishing seventh; maybe if you finish in the top four or in Europe, but not for finishing seventh."
The hosts made up for losing six of their first 10 games this season to finish the campaign on a 10-game unbeaten league run, in part down to the acquisition in January of goal-scorers Pienaar and Jelavic.
Moyes added: "We've been playing some great stuff in the last few weeks, and it's definitely the best January I've ever had in the transfer market, because it tends not to be a month in which I do business.
"We needed to do it and bringing in Jelavic and Pienaar gave us a big boost. I wouldn't mind watching that kind of display from Pienaar every week.
"We need to try and build on this now. We need to start the season a bit better than this time. We're trying to progress and to get better but it's not easy and there's no quick-fix way to do it."
Source: AFP
