With Paul Dummett ruled out of tonight’s trip to Burnley, an intriguing poll was run online, asking Newcastle fans if they’d like to see Kenedy, Clark, Manquillo or forgotten man Achraf Lazaar to take his place at left-back.
The poll ran by NUFC fan page @BlackWhiteBarmy received just under 1,000 votes, with Ciaran Clark coming out on top with 34% of the vote.
Kenedy was the next most popular choice (28%), followed by Achraf Lazaar (22%), whilst rarely seen Spaniard Javier Manquillo got just 16% of NUFC fan’s votes:
Now Dummett's been ruled out, who would you start at LB at Burnley on Monday & why? ??⚫️⚪️⚫️#nufc
— Black&WhiteBarmy (@BlackWhiteBarmy) November 23, 2018
My first thoughts were, A) Clark got more votes than I expected given how bad he was at left-back in the cup defeat at Forest and B) there’s clearly plenty fans wanting Lazaar to get his chance in the side after being out of Benitez’s plans for well over a year now.
Here’s some comments that fans made after casting their vote in the poll:
‘Clark, I think. They’re a big team, dangerous from set pieces, he could help greatly there. Dummett a big miss.’
‘We could go 3-5-2. It’s a formation I would love to see us try.’
‘Got to be Clark for me, Burnley have two big strikers who will look to pull onto smaller fullbacks to get an advantage in the air, with Clark at left back one of the centre backs can cover Yedlin more.‘Anyone but Manquillo please. Would like to see Lazaar given a chance..if not then Clark’‘Hate to say it but Manquillo. More mobile than Clark, more experienced/match fit than Lazaar and we’d be sacrificing our biggest attacking threat playing Kennedy there – unless he goes for 3 CB’s and Yedlin and Kennedy wing backs.’‘Kennedy at LWB in front of a 3 man central defence’‘Can’t believe people are picking Lazaar ahead of Manquillo! Our fans man! And why move Kenedy to LB when he is one of our best attackers? Makes no sense.’