Now is the time to bring Martin Dubravka back into this Newcastle United team | OneFootball

I am pleased that for real football lovers, the EPL and lower league football returns this weekend, after this international break.

Taking into account injuries apparently sustained whilst on international duty, I believe that this time the break will have done Newcastle United some good.

The management team will have had time to thoroughly analyse our shortcomings in the two most recent games against Liverpool at home and Brighton away at the Amex Stadium.

A vast improvement is required against Brentford and I would be surprised if Newcastle don’t return to the high intensity football that secured Champions League football.

I understand that Eddie Howe has been trying to play more possession based football in our opening games, with the obvious rigours of extra fixtures to deal with.

In my opinion, a win against Brentford is absolutely essential, so that we can go into the Champions League against Milan at the San Siro with some of our confidence restored.

We then have a winnable away game against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane, followed by a chance of ‘revenge’ against Manchester City at Gallowgate in the Carabao / League Cup.

If I was Eddie Howe, I would be very tempted to start our game against Brentford with the double pronged attack of Alexander Isak and Callum Wilson.

I also believe that Sean Longstaff will return to the first-team fold.

Anyone who regularly reads The Mag will know what my feelings were when Martin Dubravka defected to one of our rivals, Manchester United, just over a year ago.

I thought he was petulant and that it was a knee-jerk reaction to being dropped in favour of Nick Pope. The move was an unsuccessful one.

Martin Dubravka has been back in the Toon fold for six months now and what I’m about to say may surprise a few on here.

I believe that it is a necessity that Martin Dubravka replaces Nick Pope in goal against Brentford.

Pope is drastically lacking in confidence and is making handling mistakes on top of his poor footwork / distribution. This may be due to his recent hand operation.

Pope in my view definitely needs resting and with Martin Dubravka seemingly being our confirmed back-up keeper with his regular appearances on the Toon bench, now is the right time for him to ultimately redeem himself as a Newcastle United player.

He was a very popular figure amongst supporters before his defection to Salford.

As Toon fans have proved time and time again, we can be a very forgiving bunch when players knuckle down and grasp the nettle so to speak.

Going back over forty years and I remember Mick Martin getting a torrid time at Gallowgate. Mick was our club skipper but he never let his head go down. He eventually turned things around and was rewarded with the nickname ‘Zico’ by the faithful, which was certainly no micky-take.

Much more recently and we have seen the likes of Joelinton, plus to a slightly lesser extent Jacob Murphy, win over the fans in outstanding fashion.

Maybe come Saturday evening, Martin Dubravka might be given the opportunity to once again showcase what a fine goalkeeper he is, which this would surely go a long way towards his own personal redemption as one of our Newcastle United custodians.