Newcastle's midfield conundrum

On Saturday against Brighton, it’s fair to say that when Sandro Tonali was subbed off there were murmurings of discontent rippling around the stands and a smattering of boos - a completely understandable reaction when the Italian is an excellent footballer.

He is one of the most technically proficient players in the squad and personally I feel he should be starting every game due to his quality, which is something I’ve written about before.

Bruno Guimaraes, as captain, is pretty much undroppable but he is also a quality player, although it’s fair to say he certainly hasn’t hit the heights of his previous two and half years in Black and White. Putting aside the captaincy, Bruno has more than enough quality to recover his form and start providing goals and assists again.

Joelinton is a footballer reborn under Eddie Howe. From flop to hero, he has become a midfield enforcer who during 2022/23 powered us to the Champions League. (Although, it is fair to point out that he played a hybrid left sided central midfield/ left wing role on multiple occasions).

However, Newcastle haven’t won any of the three league games they have started together this season, have only scored one penalty and picked up just the one point. Unfortunately, the midfield balance just seems to be off when the three play together. Perhaps it’s all down to time and it will all come together with increased games played together and not something like what we saw with ‘England’s golden generation.’

Time is a wonderful commodity but in football it’s like gold dust and it’s by no means a given that the midfield three from Saturday will get the game time together to iron out its issues. Personally, I would love Howe to revert to the midfield three, with the obvious provisos of injuries, of Longstaff, Bruno G., Tonali.

Many will balk at the dropping of Joelinton but he is really the only option to make way. In my opinion, every team needs a work horse, positional midfielder that will read the game and make runs the take defenders away from the more dangerous players in the team. Joelinton has struggled so far this season, and I feel he is better going forward anyway.

Besides he wouldn’t be dropped forever but with the fixtures coming up it’s important the midfield balance is correct if we want to pick up points and avoid a huge gap opening in the fledgling league table.