Go on, admit it, you would have taken £10m to get rid of Joelinton | OneFootball

Finally, the ongoing Joelinton commitment to Newcastle United has been confirmed and never have I thought that a player’s contract renewal meant so much. HOORAY!!!

Let me explain.

Newcastle fans are familiar with the Joelinton story.

A striker is signed with a decent record playing in Germany / Austria, who goes on to show that, in the Premier League, he can’t hit a barn door with a banjo. The running joke was that we’d chucked £40m to the four winds and ended up with one of the biggest duck eggs in the league’s history.

Go on, admit it, you would have taken £10m to get rid of Joelinton. You’re being dishonest if you say otherwise.

November 30th 2021 changed all that. With Newcastle United reduced to 10 men following a senseless red card to Ciaran Clark, Eddie Howe and his staff decided to drop our Brazilian striking flop into central midfield and, to use an overused trite saying, the rest is history.

That day I was sat (conveniently) directly in line with the Clark misdemeanor and couldn’t believe what I saw. A red card was obvious. AND it was early doors. The display from Joelinton back in central midfield doesn’t ring any bells to me right now but the positional change sparked something in both management and CRUCIALLY- the player himself.

If a player trains for years in his youth and is labelled a striker and then refuses to be told that he could play in a completely different position, there could easily be a clash. Imagine telling Alan Shearer at 21 or 22 that he could be more effective as a centre back? He wasn’t a prolific striker at that age, just a raw talent. An impressionable young player might agree with his supposedly more knowledgeable coaches and agree to the switch.

Joelinton was never going to be a great striker, not even a decent one, but whoever thought that playing him as a midfield enforcer (to use a term) hit on a masterstroke.

Comparisons with Patrick Vieira have been bandied about and it’s hard to argue. While he’s far more likeable than the ex-Arsenal player, I do see remarkable similarities. Physical, crunching tackles, prone to a card or two and, to contradict what went before, can score a goal or two.

People name Nick Pope, Callum Wilson and Sven Botman as the key missing players this season that have hurt our progress in the league but it’s not the case. The key missing ingredient, is that box to box presence in the middle. A midfield that has looked light at times, flimsy at worst, hanging on for grim death at best.

Not the case if you add Joey into the mix.

Talk will continue about who we need to sign this summer and how many bodies we need onboard and in which position.

I would argue that the first important signing has just been made and he was here already. Credit to Amanda Staveley for apparently taking control of negotiations when Dan Ashworth went AWOGL. Absent With Our Gardening Leave.

As the song goes – “He’s Brazilian, he (only) cost £40m. But we think he’s f…ing brilliant. He’s Joel-inton.”

Brilhante. Magnifica. Fantastica.