A lot has been made of the signings that Newcastle need to make in the next month to put together a squad capable to keeping us out of trouble this coming season, but not enough has been made of what a mess the current squad is. Not only do Newcastle has more than an entire XI set to be out of contract at the end of the season (frontline by Fernandez & Hayden) but they've also got massive issues with the registration rules for the upcoming season. Premier League teams can register maximum of 25 players over the age of 21 to play their league games. Players under that age don't count toward the squad as registered players so someone like Matty Longstaff could be invaluable given the situation we find ourselves in. We already know that Lazaar, Aarons and Saivet (despite his appearance in the friendly against Crewe) have been told that they won't be considered for the 20/21 squad but Steve Bruce has a number of other tough calls to make. Let's look at a few on the edge:
Jacob Murphy - loaned out last season after a terrible season the year before. He's a winger, and we certainly need one, but is he Premier League quality? Bruce is keen to see what he can do this preseason. Remember, he cost £12m.
Yoshinori Muto - left out of the group for the York preseason training trip, no one seems to know why but he's already been given very limited chances under two managers now. Gotta wonder we spent close £10m on him.
Christian Atsu - not Premier League quality, isn't rated by Bruce, but we've really never had real left footed back up in recent years. I think Newcastle would love to move on from him.
Dan Barlaser - by all accounts he'll be loaned out. Newcastle are really keen on him but given the additions of Matty and Jeff Hendrick there's simply no room for him this season.
There's also the situation with Paul Dummett who wasn't registered at the end of January because he wasn't likely to play before the end of the season, of course that was all before COVID-19 came around, so we missed him during the restart. Ciaran Clark is another who missed the whole of project restart and he'll need to be registered again. Of course we didn't retain Lazaro, Bentaleb or Rose (yet!) so we've freed up some space there. Bruce has made some noise about monitoring Danny Rose for perhaps another season long loan - so he'd need to be registered also.
Another massive issue for Newcastle is keeping these lads fit. The core of the squad is good, certainly good enough to keep us out of the bottom 3 - but how often do they all play together? I mean, how often does Dubravka, Dummett, Lascelles, Fernandez, Ritchie, Shelvey, Hayden & Gayle all play together? Not often if memory serves. When those players get injured we've not been able to rely on Lejeune, Clark, Yedlin, Longstaff and Carroll to fill in at the same level. Naturally the worst case scenario is if/when ASM or Almiron get injured. If either (or both!) get hurt we've got very little else in the attacking third. This leads me think that Jacob Murphy might be kept around for a while.
So let's take a look at that squad.
Keepers:
Dubravka, Darlow, Gillespie. We're good here. Perhaps our strongest position. I'd argue that we've got at least 2, maybe 3 Premier League keepers and still Woodman locked up for the next 3 seasons. (3 to be registered)
Defenders:
Dummett, Yedlin, Manquillo, Krath, Lejeune, Clark, Schar, Fede, Lascelles. All decent quality, lots of injury concerns though. Kell Watts invaluable next season when we'll lose at least 2 others. Amazingly, only 1 left back - no Ritchie isn't a left back! We have to sign one, and we have to move out one of our right backs in order to balance this. Yedlin now wants to stay apparently, Manquillo just signed a new contract so perhaps we can loan out Krafth? As of now though, all of these will need to be registered. So that 12 already with the goalies.
Midfielders:
This could be interesting! Atsu, ASM, Murphy, Almiron, Shelvey, Hayden, S Longstaff, M Longstaff, Jeff Hendrick, Henri Saivet, Rolando Aarons, Archraf Lazaar, Dan Barlaser. These numbers won't work obviously. Saivet, Aarons, Barlaser and Lazaar won't be registered but that still leaves us with 9 more registered players. That's a total of 20 already. There's also a question of talent and balance with our midfield. We've got a lot of central midfielders and I'd argue that beyond Hayden and Shelvey they're all similar talent wise right now. I maintain that Sean Longstaff could become a very good Premier League player but Matty we don't know enough about yet. Atsu and Murphy aren't up to standard so can we ship them out and replace them? Not likely, unless it's loans. Any chance we can find a club to take Saivet on loan again? Aarons? Lazaar?!
Strikers:
With 5 places left to fill in the 25 man squad we're down to the last few places. Fortunately, we've not got many strikers so Carroll, Gayle, Joelinton & Muto all fit into the squad but let's talk about talent here - or rather a desperate lack of talent. Our record signing Joelinton might not even be a striker, but he's done nothing to prove that he's either worthy of the number 9 shirt nor even a starting place in Bruce's team. Dwight Gayle might be the closest thing we have to a top level striker, and he can't stay fit - I do wonder, if he stays fit for a whole season could he score 10+ league goals? All other things being equal I bet he could. Andy Carroll scored in a friendly against Crewe and while it was a very well taken goal we shouldn't all of a sudden expect him to be anything more than he was last season. This is clearly Newcastle's worst position. We're absolutely desperate for a real proven goal scorer. I've made it clear on social media that I believe Alfredo Morelos is our best bet to fit the budget, Ashley's young profile, and ability to score goals. He's scored close to a goal every other game for Rangers, and yes, I know it's not the Premier League but clearly he's crying out for a swing in the top tier. I know he's had disciplinary issues up in Scotland but playing down to your competition will do that to you! I've hear the Mitro comparisons, but don't get me wrong, I'd have him back as well!
So, we're at 24 leaving out Aarons, Lazaar, Saivet & Barlaser. We've added Hendrick and Matty Longstaff, who doesn't have to be registered and we have room for just ONE more. If Newcastle are going to sign anyone else then they've got to find a way to either sell some of the fringe players, or loan them out. I'd say Muto, Murphy and Atsu are the obvious choices but who is going to take these players? Maybe we can try and offload them as part of swap deals (Rangers interested in Murphy apparently) but Muto is on big wages so he won't be easy to shift and we've really had no luck with Aarons now for a while. I'd say we need a left back, and winger and a striker.
So what does Steve Bruce do? Would you keep Atsu or Murphy given the choice? This is a tough one for me. Atsu is really poor but Murphy hasn't shown anything like Premier League quality. Perhaps we do need to shift out a central defender to make room for more attacking flexibility. Candidly, given Lejeune's injury history I'd be open to selling him despite his obvious talent, and what happened to Fabian Schar? Surely that form can't continue, maybe he wants away? Ciaran Clark has also only has 1 year left on this contract so maybe he should be shifted. Either way, we might have to lose a defender this window.
Ultimately, we need goals. Whatever way you look at this squad, whatever football manager style moves you pretend to make, this team lacks goals. We're desperately short of creation in the team, and we're lacking any real quality in depth. There's a lot to do in order to make this team viable for the Premier League. Mike Ashley must see this, or at least, listen to it when he's told by whomever he listens to about club affairs. In the end, we might end up having to not register players like we did last season in order to get the kind of quality we need!
However you slice it, we've got many more questions than answers right now! So before we get too caught up on who we should be signing, let's talk about who we should be selling.
Adam Beckett
adambeckett09
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