Jamaal Lascelles has praised NUFC new boy Federico Fernandez, describing him as a ‘top centre-half’ and claiming that we will do ‘very well defensively’ this season if they can continue playing as well as they did on Saturday.
Despite being signed in the final few minutes of the summer window, it’s fair to say Fernandez has been one of our most impressive players so far this season, with the Argentinian international barely putting a foot wrong since he came into the team last month.
Whilst our performance against Palace was severely lacking from an offensive perspective, we were superb defensively, with Lascelles and Fernandez putting in outstanding performances to preserve our clean sheet and earn us a point.
Here’s what Lascelles has had to say about Fernandez when asked about the former Swansea defender:
“Feddy is a top centre-half. He is experienced, he’s played in the Premier League for a long time, and you can really tell with how he plays.
“His covering, his positioning, everything is spot on. When balls go in behind, he knows when to react.
“We work well together and really bounce off each other quite well. He’s vocal like me and, if we play like we did against Palace most weeks, we’ll do very well defensively.”
Given how devastated we all were to lose Lejeune to a serious knee injury over the summer, it really is such a huge relief to have Fernandez slotting in and doing so well alongside the skipper.
As Lascelles says, they seem to compliment each other very well, with Fernandez also being a clear leader – which is to be expected given he captained Swansea prior to his move to St James’ Park.
He may be nearing his 30’s – something Ashley often opts against when it comes to new signings – but what a brilliant piece of business he looks to be at just £6m.
(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)
