“I wasn’t a fan of you starting but I’ve grown from that to see what a top player you are,” was a backhanded social media compliment still more positive than many that Sean Longstaff has received this season.
The rose-tinted spectacles through which some homegrown players are seen have long been taken off for the 27-year-old. So much so that many supporters would have been content had he left St James’ Park in the summer for a cut-price, PSR-inspired figure of £15m.
The lure of the returning Sandro Tonali, the Italian Porsche who cost treble that figure last summer, was surely a better prospect.
Barely a dozen games later, the North Shields-born midfielder’s exit from the starting line-up, let alone the north east, would feel like a misstep.
Newcastle have won seven games in all competitions this season – he has started all of them, and sat out all three defeats, of which Tonali started each.
Not to doubt the Italian’s qualities. Both players are very different, but it is the balance, as much as individual quality, that Longstaff helps create which explains how Eddie Howe may have found his old Newcastle again.
Monday 25th November 6:30pm
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Longstaff is not showy – he has created as many chances as Dan Burn, and beaten a man with the ball once all season. But that is never his game. Howe has looked to restore the bite to his Newcastle midfield, and he is stopping opponents in their tracks more than twice as regularly as anyone else at the club.
He was at his disruptive best against Arsenal, making six tackles and frustrating their build-up in both halves of the pitch. Perhaps it was the moment the fans turned to his side, but it wasn’t the moment he hit form. Instead, it was the first time he was joined in the starting line-up by each of Joelinton, Joe Willock and Bruno Guimaraes.
That quartet has only ever started 13 Premier League games together, owing largely to injuries, but is unbeaten in each – and has won 11 of them.
The most regular absentee from the line-up has been Willock, who has made only eight starts since the beginning of last season, having been a regular in Newcastle’s run to the Champions League a year before.
Since October 2022, Newcastle have a 66 per cent win ratio when the midfielder starts, and 42 per cent without. It is tempting to wonder how last season may have played out had he been able to make more than the five starts he was limited to by a succession of injuries.
They appeared to have taken their toll mentally on a player playing within himself in his first eight appearances this season, six from the bench, before things finally clicked in the Carabao Cup win over Chelsea last month.
“We’ve missed him so much through injury,” said Howe afterwards. “It’s been a long way back and it’s never been totally smooth.”
When on form, Willock is the best ball carrier at the club and alongside another of the quartet, Joelinton, gets to show it at his best.
The big Brazilian’s off-the-ball involvement gives Willock space to drift forward from his nominal position of central midfield over onto the left flank. Against Nottingham Forest, 19 of his touches came further wide than the penalty area.
Despite playing in theory as a central midfielder, Joe Willock spent most of the game vs Nottm Forest on the left flank – alongside Joelinton, until the latter was moved over to the right to accommodate Anthony Gordon
These two are the best examples of how well-oiled Newcastle look when all four are playing.
Guimaraes – whose strengths need little explanation – and Longstaff act as the beating heart of the midfield, and as Willock drifts up and down the left flank, Joelinton interchanges with him, providing a perfect foil and defending from the front.
The 28-year-old, whose transformation from an unfancied No 9 is still bewildering, saved his finest moment of the season for a well-taken goal in the win at Forest, but the crunching challenge on Elliot Anderson, shortly after his introduction, and the subsequent quiet performance from the ex-Newcastle man, was a more familiar show of his strengths.
“He’s like gold dust,” Howe told Sky Sports after the game. “You know wherever you put him, he will do a good job. His attitude never changes.
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Newcastle midfielder Joelinton shares his team’s ambitions for silverware, praises Eddie Howe’s ‘impact’ and discusses how it feels to have been at the club for five years.
“He’s playing in different positions because we utilise him there in games and he has to do the training, and he never flickers. He will do whatever the team needs him to do.”
Against Forest, that included moving out onto the right so Anthony Gordon could play in his favoured role on the left flank. It did not harm Newcastle one iota.
Accommodating players like Gordon, Harvey Barnes and Tonali appears the only thing threatening the Magpies’ holy quartet in the near future, providing they can stay clear of injury for the foreseeable future.
But for now, Howe has looked backwards to bring Newcastle forward. And given the instability at St James’ Park over the last 12 months, that’ll do just nicely for now.
Watch Newcastle vs West Ham live on Sky Sports Premier League from 6.30pm on Monday, kick-off 8pm.
