Whenever I watch the Newcastle United matches on TV, if Mrs Lass is in the room I invariably pass on nuggets of vitally important information to her – some of which she occasionally listens to!
Recent topics of note have highlighted how poor the referee is (a standard one, that), how much I hate cheats (even if they’re OUR cheats) and how poetic it is to see Manure/Liverpool/Arsenal suffer any sort of VAR injustice.
Increasingly of late, though, I’ve found myself repeatedly bewailing the fact that someone who’d just done something remarkable was “yet another player we tried to sign!”
The most recent candidate was Dominik Szoboszlai with his latest 30 yard screamer. The night before it was another Dominic – Calvert Lewin who was cruelly denied a hat-trick due to deflections in his shots.
But there were others associated with the Liverpool v Spurs game, or elsewhere, that I could have mentioned – James “Diver” Maddison, the Sesko Kid, Hugo Ekithump and the Pilsbury Doughboy’s brother, Muñoz.
Notice how – now that the dastardly creatures have decided to go elsewhere – I’ve drawn on my reserves of adolescent angst and dubbed them with what are meant to be disparaging monikers and nicknames. “That’ll learn ‘em” as my dear departed Grandma used to say!
I have to admit that Mamardvashvili and Adarabioyo defeated me – not to mention the Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea “dastards”…
Guehi, Khusanov, Tielemans, Mbeumo, Cunha, Pedro, Gallagher….some of the players NUFC may or may not have seriously tried to buy.
Whatever the reasons why some/all of these players didn’t come to St James’ Park, the knock on effect for Newcastle United is something interesting and potentially quite exciting from our perspective and that is a change in our buying strategy.
Young guys with potential have become the stock in trade of Newcastle United’s transfer activity now which, on the evidence so far, seems to be Ross Wilson’s forte. We were relatively busy in the summer window and of our nine summer buys, of them were 21 or under and the three “veterans” were all only 24!
Sean Steur (18)
Aladji Bamba (20)
Ewan Jaouen (20)
Bazoumana Touré (20)
Mathias Fernandez-Pardo (21)
Lukas Hornicek (24)
Amar Dedic (24)
Ousmane Diabate (18)
Nico Gonzalez (24)
To return to my starting point of imparting nuggets of footballing wisdom to Mrs Lass, one that I’ve found myself repeating, like that aged relative with failing memory, every time I watch the lads nowadays is, “This kid’s going to be one Hell of a player!”
The kid in question is, of course, Sean Steur. An 18 year old prodigy who didn’t get snatched from under our collective nose.
Credit: Newcastle United FC
I watched a reel on Facebook this morning which followed him through the game against Hull and it was a joy to watch. Not wishing to add unnecessary pressure or go all Chronicle-style “wonderkid” on him, I have to say that I was mesmerised. It was like watching a young, slightly more animated Sergio Busquets in operation – receive or intercept the ball, decide which direction to move play on to, give a crisp, nicely weighted pass to progress the team upfield (or retain possession if that’s not on).
Like Busquets, he is constantly checking what’s happening around him and invariably seems to know exactly what he wants to do before he receives the ball. That’s a trait I admire in Adam Wharton so here’s hoping Sean can strengthen the comparison and develop the range of passing that Wharton has as well.
A lot was made of his misdirected pass against Leeds that led to a goal. For me, that sort of thing comes with the territory of a busy midfielder – especially a teenager in his first few weeks in the Premier League. But what pleased me was the way he shrugged it off and slowly got into that game then came back even stronger in the next one. Did I tell you, “This kid’s going to be one Hell of a player”!
Arguably, our biggest coup of the summer window was the signing of Matias Fernandez-Pardo. I must admit, I hadn’t heard of him before and my first thought on hearing we’d signed “Pardo” was, “We’d be better off leaving him to make those daft adverts with Fat Sam and Pulis”!
Rumoured to be targeted by Liverpool, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Spurs along with some continental giants, he was signed for an initial £51 million towards the end of the transfer window.
An incredibly pacy forward, he is credited with being able to play all across the front line. With the limited game time he’s had so far, it’s difficult to judge that claim fairly but I haven’t seen much concrete evidence that he’s a natural centre forward. I would say he’s better equipped to come in from wide positions, running into space and burning off the opposition – our own version of Bradley Barcola?
One thing is for sure, he has pace to burn and showed this in his more extended outing against Hull. Contrary to some views expressed by other fans on The Mag, I thought he was superb in that game. He had minimal possession and only really threatened the goal once that I remember but his workrate was prodigious. He single-handedly pressed the whole of the Hull back line and had their keeper panicking every time he came anywhere near him.
He literally ran himself into the ground and it was no surprise when he had to leave the field with cramp. It was also no surprise that with him and Sean Steur going off within eight minutes of each other that Hull took a firm grip on the game and the lads had to hang on desperately to keep all three points.
Two of our three subs in that game were other youngsters bought in the summer – Bazoumana Touré and Aladji Bamba. Touré has already shown flashes of his ability in his previous cameos, picking up a consolation goal at Elland Road. Bamba, though, has had very little exposure so far. He looks a big, strong lad but has needed a little longer to adapt to the speed and intensity of the Premier League but I think there are signs that he’s getting there.
No such problems with our Dutch jewel in the crown, Sean Steur, though. Did I tell you, “This kid’s going to be one HELL of a player”!