In the January window, Newcastle completed the three loan signings of Nabil Bentaleb from Schalke, Valentino Lazaro from Inter Milan and Danny Rose from Tottenham Hotspur. Although Bentaleb and Lazaro's positions in right wing-back and centre midfield were not ones that needed strengthening they still appeared to be good additions to the squad. Now that we have seen a few appearances from them I am going to assess whether they need to be here and whether they want to be here.
Starting with Nabil Bentaleb. The former Spurs midfielder looked to be a massive box of tricks in his few appearances at Spurs and in his time with Schalke in Germany. When Newcastle were linked with the signing of the Algerian I for one was very excited at the prospect of having, what I deemed to be, one of Europe's hidden gems in terms of talent. Nabil can be an exhilarating player at times with a canny wand of a left foot, good close control and on the occasional basis showing he has the ability to go past the opposition with ease. The midfielder hasn't had the greatest season so far. Being exiled to train with the reserves by David Wagner at Schalke because of an alleged 'attitude' problem and now is under the cosh at United due to his lacklustre performances in the 5 appearances he has made so far. At Palace on Saturday (a game where many players didn't cover themselves in glory) fans started to get on the back of Newcastle's number 42, as they did with others as well. I think this signifies the start that He has had with Toon Army as we all know as supporters that Bentaleb possesses some high quality that helped Schalke get into the Europa League in the 2016-17 season and the heights of the Champions League in 2018-19, and I think the Geordie Faithful are just frustrated to see him so off the boil, especially when we are really struggling at the moment.
Personally, I feel Bentaleb does want to make his move permanent due to his uncertain future back in Germany, and he feels that Newcastle is the optimum destination because of the way he has spoken about how great the fans are and how big the club is.
In conclusion, if Bentaleb does come through and shows some of the star quality that he has, I would opt to make his move permanent. As being reported his loan to buy clause is only £8.5 million and for a midfielder that could prove to be a game-changer for us, that is an absolute steal.
Our second signing was Valentino Lazaro from Serie A title contenders Inter Milan. Lazaro had limited game time at I Nerazzurri only making 6 appearances under former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte. We don't know why Lazaro wasn't given many appearances by the Italian, however, it may have been due to Conte's defensive demands and he felt Lazaro didn't fit his criteria. Lazaro was yet another signing I was super impressed with, He is someone that I have tracked for a while and have always said I would love for Newcastle to sign someday and now he is here. The Austrian, much like Bentaleb, came in as someone who played in a position that didn't need to be strengthened. He can bring more to our attack with skills such as excellent crossing ability and pace to burn on the counter-attack.
In his first two starts, Lazaro has been disappointed to say the very least. Against Arsenal, he was directly at fault for two of the goals proving to not have the greatest defensive capabilities and against Palace, he had proved to us he could do it against someone like Zaha, until he tugged the Ivorian down to the ground in the 95th minute, meaning we would not concede a second but instead lose him for to a suspension on a 3 match ban.
It's difficult to judge Lazaro's attitude toward Newcastle, he seems to be fighting for the team and has spoken about how he is happy to be in the Premier League, however, in contrast, his agent constantly tried offering him to other clubs during negotiations and has spoken out about Lazaro's future stating that he wishes to fight for a place at Inter in the long term.
Unlike Bentaleb it is very hard to decide on whether I'd want him to stay, If he shows the level of ability that some fans will have seen he has then usually it would be a yes, but, with the whole agent situation it just leaves a sour taste in the mouth, so I am yet to decide on Lazaro.
And finally, we come to Danny Rose, famously known for loving fish and chips! No, sorry, famously known for his 29 Caps for England and once arguably being one of the best left-backs in Europe. This does not seem to be the case with the Danny Rose we have obtained for our squad. This Danny Rose looks like he loves fish and chips, holding a bit of timber, a yard off the pace of everyone else. From what I have seen from the Leeds born fullback so far I haven't been impressed. By watching him live at Palace and Arsenal he looked lethargic, sort of like he couldn't be bothered for the fight he needs to put in for the team. Jonny in the 'Scoring The Players' video after Palace made a good point about him, in that is he just used to playing with better players, if I am brutally honest, I do not think this is the case. Just because he is playing with a lower level quality group of players doesn't mean he can't do the basics of running down the wing and whipping a cross in. The situation with the former Doncaster Rovers loanee is highly annoying, it gets under my skin, he has moved to our club to get game time, if he wants game time he needs to get stuck in and show some passion, instead it just looks like he has come here, not realised the state of the tactics and the club and said to himself "You know what, I can't be bothered". This really bugs me, especially when you have Matt Ritchie on the bench that, to be honest, isn't top of the range Premier League quality, however, he embarrasses up Danny Rose in terms of performance and attitude.
If I was the man who got to decide whether we should sign Rose permanently or not, I would definitely not sign him, the Ex-Sunderland loanee is 29 years old and will be 30 by the start of next season and therefore is on the decline, his attitude doesn't seem great so you can see why José Mourinho wanted to get rid of him. He doesn't strike me as a senior voice in the dressing room either. Rose doesn't tick any of the boxes for me and the sooner his loan ends the better especially when we have the luxury option of signing Jetro Willems permanently at the end of the season and he is a player that will fight for the team, wants to be here and provides to the squad.
This piece I have written on Rose will more than likely come back to bite me on the behind in which case I will support him, but as it stands and if it continues like this, I do not want him to have a long term future at Newcastle and we are better off without him.