THERE is an adage in football that your status is never higher than when you’re left out of a losing team. When it comes to Newcastle United at the moment, that statement certainly seems to apply to Sean Longstaff.

With every week that has passed so far this season, Longstaff’s importance has grown. The key question now is whether Eddie Howe will acknowledge that fact by restoring the homegrown midfielder to the starting line-up for the home game with Brentford that marks the end of the international break. The easy call would be to keep things as they are and leave Longstaff on the substitutes’ bench. It would also be the wrong one.

The more Newcastle have played this season, the more it has become evident that the current midfield mix is not working. In all four league games so far, Howe has started with Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton as his midfield three. Against Aston Villa, when the Magpies were on the front foot and carving Villa’s defence apart at will, the combination purred. At Manchester City, when Newcastle were uncharacteristically submissive, problems emerged.

It is the games against Liverpool and Brighton, however, that have really suggested that a change is required. In the second half of the Liverpool game, when Newcastle were crying out for some midfield authority as their grip on the contest weakened, the lack of such a controlling presence was glaringly evident. Against Brighton, things were even worse, with the Magpies’ midfield being repeatedly overrun as the Seagulls mounted wave after wave of effective attacks.

No one is doubting the quality of the three players currently lining up in midfield – it is just that the blend of the unit as a whole is not right. Tonali and Guimaraes are too similar to complement each other effectively. Regardless of who is playing as the central midfielder, the pair tend to want to occupy the same spaces and look to do the same things with the ball. Joelinton is slightly different, with his all-action style playing a crucial role in helping Newcastle establish their high press, but the Brazilian is hardly the kind of deep-lying defensive midfielder that the Magpies needed against Liverpool and Brighton.

It can be argued that Longstaff is not really that either, but with a mooted summer move for Declan Rice having been hastily abandoned once it became clear that Arsenal were willing to pay whatever it was going to take to prise the England international from West Ham, the North Shields-born 25-year-old is currently the closest thing Newcastle have to a natural defensive-midfield presence.

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If nothing else, Longstaff’s positional discipline is superior to that of either Guimaraes or Joelinton, and on the admittedly limited evidence of the four games so far, it appears to be better than that of Tonali too. The North-Easterner does more than simply plug a gap at the base of midfield – his passing ability and timing of his runs into the box are too often underrated – but when it comes to containing an opposition and establishing a defensive platform for Newcastle to attack from, he is surely a better bet than any of his midfield rivals.

Perhaps Newcastle do not need that kind of defensive security in their forthcoming matches, given that their next three league games pit them against Brentford, Sheffield United and Burnley? Those are certainly matches the Magpies should be targeting for all three points, but they are unlikely to be successful in them if they are wide open at the back. And that’s before we even start thinking about the challenge that will be posed by Champions League rivals AC Milan and Paris St Germain in the next month, not to mention Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.

Politically, there is no doubt that it is easier for Howe to keep Longstaff out of the side. Tonali is Newcastle’s record signing, having made a £55m move from Milan earlier this summer. Guimaraes is an established Brazil international and was arguably Newcastle’s Player of the Season last year. Joelinton is a firm fans’ favourite and one of the most reliable performers in the whole of the Premier League.

Longstaff, on the other hand, is an academy product who has spent his entire Magpies career dropping in and out of the starting line-up and who, at various points, has looked like leaving St James’ Park in order to further his prospects of securing regular first-team football. He’s hardly going to kick up a fuss if he was to be left out again, but Howe is not going to be able to take Newcastle to the heights they aspire to reach if he shies away from difficult decision and is swayed by reputation and status rather than the needs of the team.

Restoring Longstaff to the starting side against Brentford is the right call – even if means having to drop either a record signing, a Brazilian superstar or a fans’ favourite to do it.


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WAS Gareth Southgate right to leave Nick Pope out of the England squad? Probably. The Newcastle goalkeeper has had a shaky start to the season – as exemplified by the catalogue of errors that led to Brighton’s opening goal at the weekend – and missed the last round of international matches in order to undergo hand surgery at the end of last season.

Pope remains a fine goalkeeper, and his exploits last term mean he still has plenty of credit in the bank at Newcastle. Again, though, it should not be assumed that that will last forever. Hopefully, the 31-year-old will use his enforced international break to clear his head, regroup and get back to doing what he was doing so effectively last term.