IT is a refrain that Steve Bruce has uttered repeatedly this season, and one that he turned to again as he basked in the afterglow of Newcastle United’s crucial weekend win at Burnley.

“Too often this season, our big players haven’t been available,” said the Magpies boss. “When you’re a club in the bottom half of the division, you need your big players. It’s not rocket science…”

In an attacking sense at least, Newcastle’s ‘big players’ are generally regarded to be leading scorer Callum Wilson, talismanic game-changer Allan Saint-Maximin and attacking-midfield livewire Miguel Almiron. As a triumvirate, Bruce is right to state that they have been absent more often than they have been available this season.

Discounting injury-time at the end of either half, Newcastle have played a total of 2,790 minutes of Premier League football this season. Only 386 of those minutes have seen Wilson, Saint-Maximin and Almiron on the pitch at the same time.

The trio have started four matches together, and those games, three of which took place before the middle of November, resulted in two victories (Everton and Southampton at home), a draw (Wolves away) and a defeat (Southampton away).

There are a further six games where one or more of the three players have come off the bench to complete the threesome and play together, although two (home to Man United and away to Aston Villa) only saw the three alongside each other for a combined total of 11 minutes.

The other four matches, where the trio shared the field for at least 23 minutes or more on each occasion, resulted in two wins (Everton away and Burnley away) and two defeats (Leeds home and Crystal Palace home).

So, discounting the two games where the three players only played together for a matter of minutes, Newcastle’s win ratio when Wilson, Saint-Maximin and Almiron are all on the field is 50 per cent. Their win ratio for the whole of the Premier League season currently stands at 25.8 per cent. The contrast is stark, although it should not be interpreted as an exoneration of some of the failings that have resulted in Newcastle having to scrap for survival in the bottom four.

If the attacking trio are so important, why did Bruce fail to select Almiron in his starting side for a third of Newcastle’s pre-Christmas matches? Why was he toying with the idea of dropping Saint-Maximin before Covid struck in early December, seemingly frustrated at the way in which the forward’s form had tailed off after he signed a new contract? Why, even now, is he struggling to come up with a formation that best accommodates all three attackers in the team?

They are all pertinent questions, although they do not detract from the basic point which is that Bruce is right when he states that Newcastle are a more successful team when Wilson, Saint-Maximin and Almiron are available to play.

As he says, it is hardly rocket science to conclude that being able to play your best players is a prerequisite to success.

Assuming Newcastle are still in the Premier League, a key challenge for next season will be to ensure the Magpies’ attacking big three are available for more than the 13 per cent of matches they have managed to line up for this term.