Siem de Jong insists Newcastle United are still a big attraction for the game's best players.

The midfielder left Ajax last summer for Newcastle.

"I think players will want to come to Newcastle - it's a big club and I think everybody in football knows that it's a big club," he told the Evening Chronicle. "The last few years are a little bit up and down. They've had some good finishes - I think a couple of seasons ago they were fifth - and they've had some down times as well. Last season would be a strange one because they were fifth or sixth at the halfway mark and finished 10th.

"Those are things that we should improve on but it's also about players leaving and getting injured. It's difficult. I had it at my old club as well, we were champions four years in a row but we lost the three best players every year so we needed to build and start again. A lot of times at the start of the season things were really difficult but by the middle or the end of the season we were playing much better.

"It happened here as well - you lose a couple of players to bigger clubs and it's difficult. Hopefully we can get a group together here that stays together for a couple of years, gets used to each other and really improves."