Sean Longstaff

[PauloGeordio]

  On 25/04/2023 at 15:09, Joseph said:

I had completely forgotten how often he was getting caught dawdling in the ball earlier in the season. Was absolutely infuriating. Just doesn’t happen at all now though. 

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Howe is this possible? 

[The College Dropout]

Quietly got himself 4 assists. 2 more before the season is our will be a good return. 

[TK-421]

Theres a great piece about Longy on The Athletic today, talking about his time under Bruce, his turnaround under Howe, and some funny stuff at the end.

Think its already been documented, but his time under Bruce almost broke him... poor lad.

[Mikky]

  On 26/04/2023 at 07:11, TK-421 said:

Theres a great piece about Longy on The Athletic today, talking about his time under Bruce, his turnaround under Howe, and some funny stuff at the end.

Think its already been documented, but his time under Bruce almost broke him... poor lad.

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Broke most of us tbh 

[Guest]

  On 25/04/2023 at 15:09, Joseph said:

I had completely forgotten how often he was getting caught dawdling in the ball earlier in the season. Was absolutely infuriating. Just doesn’t happen at all now though. 

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Aye that's been his biggest improvement the last few months. He'd get dispossessed within 30 yards of our goal either through a lack of pace bringing the ball out and getting caught, or taking too long to decide which pass to make. It doesn't happen these days, he's been excellent.

[STM]

If someone could post the article ? 

[JLC]

It's an absolutely brilliant interview.

[RUHRLYASLEEVESUP]

  On 26/04/2023 at 07:22, JLC said:

It's an absolutely brilliant interview.

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Such a tease 

[ponsaelius]

  On 26/04/2023 at 07:15, Optimistic Nut said:

 

Aye that's been his biggest improvement the last few months. He'd get dispossessed within 30 yards of our goal either through a lack of pace bringing the ball out and getting caught, or taking too long to decide which pass to make. It doesn't happen these days, he's been excellent.

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Tbh he has most got caught on the ball in the past when he's been asked to be the deepest midfielder. Don't doubt the improvement but a lot of it is just down to position imo.

[TK-421]

Its a Long one (a longstaff one, haha) but I can post it up if its ok with admins (being from The Athletic)?

 

[timeEd32]

  On 26/04/2023 at 07:34, TK-421 said:

Its a Long one (a longstaff one, haha) but I can post it up if its ok with admins (being from The Athletic)?

 

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Forgiveness, not permission.

[TK-421]

  Reveal hidden contents

Sean Longstaff interview: ‘I used to not like myself but I’ve learned not to give a f***’

George Caulkin

Apr 26, 2023

 

There are a few candidates for the player who best represents Newcastle United’s resurgence and here is the case for Sean Longstaff, the running man. Not too long ago, the midfielder was running out of road at St James’ Park – out of contention, out of sorts, out of love with football – and now just look at him: the dynamo of Eddie Howe’s team who has featured in every game in every competition this season. The one who has stayed at home to come home.

Running, always running; towards the Champions League, it looks like, and, who knows, perhaps towards recognition with England. “I feel like me again,” Longstaff says and he is smiling, laughing and, like the rest of Tyneside, he is released from the numbing purgatory of nothing. There is no time to waste. “I’ve missed out on a couple of years of learning, so I’m playing catch-up,” he says and this is why he runs.

 

Post-takeover, Newcastle have made some transformative signings, but when you look at the XI that blasted through Tottenham Hotspur, the fifth-best side in the Premier League with two World Cup winners and Harry Kane up front, the remarkable thing is how little they have changed. Longstaff, Fabian Schar, Joe Willock, Joelinton and Jacob Murphy were all at the club in the bad old days and Howe has moulded them into this gorgeous machinery of rage.

Before kick-off against Spurs, Kieran Trippier called Newcastle’s players together into a circle. They locked arms, bent forward and listened. “Pressure is a privilege,” the captain said and they played as if born to it. “We’ve had so long of looking at the table after every game and thinking, ‘Where’s the next win coming from?’ and that pressure makes you worried and tense, but this pressure is a privilege,” Longstaff says.

“Tripps says it before every game in our little huddle. Ultimately, the top four is where we want to get to. For a long time, we didn’t speak about it as players but we’re so close now, it’s only right we embrace it. We’ve put ourselves in such a good position; we have to give it everything. We’ve got to make the most of it.”

 

Stop running for long enough and the scale of what has happened at Newcastle, the familiarity and the contrast, makes your head spin. “It’s crazy even speaking about it,” Longstaff says. “I was watching the Champions League on the telly last week thinking, ‘We could be playing in this next season. We could be going up against these teams and seeing how good we are’. A year and a half ago, I didn’t know if was going to be here.

“I remember watching DVDs of Newcastle in the Champions League as a kid and that’s what you want to be part of, but I never thought it was achievable. I never thought in my career, in my lifetime, I’d be in a position to try to get Newcastle into the Champions League, so that’s where you’ve got to try to use that pressure.”

 

Seven games left. Seven more chapters to write. Once an afterthought, anonymous, rejected and now integral, Longstaff has seven more races to run.

Everton are first and, in another version of this career, this lifetime, Longstaff could have been running for them. Howe retreats back to January last year, back to when Newcastle were still flailing, to pinpoint the “key moment” in Longstaff’s recovery. Rafa Benitez, by then clinging on as manager at Goodison Park, was pushing to sign a player entering the final months of his contract, but Howe saw a future in him and fought.

To fully explain how good Longstaff is, how good he feels, how far he has run, we have to engage — briefly — with the bad. “It’s weird, looking back,” Longstaff says. “Before the new manager came to Newcastle, I wasn’t enjoying football. I wasn’t enjoying coming in every day and not really playing. In my opinion, I didn’t feel like I was getting massively coached into becoming the best version of me.

 

“Sometimes you have to do what’s best for yourself and Rafa gave me my chance at Newcastle and I’d played well for him, so it was natural to have a little look at that. Earlier in the season, I was ready to go. I knew Everton weren’t in the best of form and with Rafa being ex-Liverpool, it was tricky for him, but in my head, I’d probably got to the point of, ‘Right, that’s it, that’s my decision’. Sometimes you need a fresh start to go find yourself.”

Longstaff was Newcastle’s lost boy. He had surged to prominence in Benitez’s final season at St James’, earning comparisons to Declan Rice and links to Manchester United before a knee ligament injury curtailed his season. “It was perfect when I broke through,” he says. “I came in and did well and everyone loves you.” But then Benitez left, any pretence of ambition left with him, and the mood around the club curdled.

 

“When Steve Bruce came in as manager, I’d come back from injury and didn’t really feel like I was ready but sort of felt like I had to play,” Longstaff says. “And when you’re in that mindset and in that position, you’re never going to be able to play well and, over time, I just sort of …”

 

Like that sentence, Longstaff fell away. Newcastle were “ticking over”, in Bruce’s memorable phrase. The takeover was happening and then not happening. There was lockdown. There was stagnation. Mike Ashley, the owner, was only interested in getting out, or so it felt, and the club flatlined. Nobody and nothing was getting better.

 

Longstaff has spoken about his dismantling before but his honesty is still raw. “It was probably a culmination of things,” he says. “As much as I didn’t enjoy football, I think the biggest thing was I didn’t like me. I wasn’t great with family. Taking out my frustration. That’s bad because they’re always going to be there no matter what and they had to deal with me on some horrible days.

“It was little things. We’d go for a meal and I’m miserable in the corner because you take your job home, don’t you? Family holidays: I was there but I wasn’t there. I was a bit of an arse. Sulky, more than anything. I knew I had to change.

“Everyone probably knows the story of me having breakfast with my dad and my brother (in 2021, Longstaff told Newcastle’s official website how he broke down in tears while trying to eat with his family) — it got to that point where it hit the peak and that’s when I pretty much broke down and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m not in the right place here’.

 

“Matt Ritchie texted me that night and said, ‘Longy, you need to speak to someone’ and gave me the number of a psychologist and that was the start of it turning the other way. Two years down the line, a lot has changed.”

And Longstaff laughs again.

 

That brutal moment of self-discovery with David, his father, the former ice hockey player, and Matty, his brother and fellow Newcastle player, came in October 2020. Another followed 13 months later when Howe replaced Bruce. “After his first training session, I thought, ‘That’s totally different’. I loved every second. I didn’t play much at the start but I always thought the way he wanted to play really suited me, and once I’d got in…”

That January, when Everton came knocking, Howe showered Longstaff with love. “I needed it massively,” he says. “In my opinion, it was something that had been lacking in the two years prior. It’s like anything: as much as you’re a professional and an adult, if someone shows you a bit of love and affection and tells you how great you are, it’s nice to hear. I hadn’t heard it for a long time.

 

“I spoke to the new manager more that month than I’d spoken to the old one in two years, which is probably not a good sign. He told me what his plans were, how he saw me in the team. He said, ‘We’ll get you a new contract sorted’ — the club had just let me run into the last year of my deal. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t really think I believe you’, but it came true.

 

“My mentality shifted from being ready to go to, ‘You’ve got six months to save your Newcastle career’. I remember going home and saying, ‘I want to stay’ and that’s when I had to show him I really wanted to be part of it. I’ll forever be grateful. But the second I met him and his staff, knowing straight away he would help me get better as a player and person, I was ready to run through brick walls for him.”

Does Longstaff like himself now?

 

“Yeah, I think so!” he says. “Way more than I did. I think I’m nicer to be around and more chilled out. A lot of it is down to my team-mates and the staff. They’re always speaking to you about life, about everything. They’re there, they care and they want what’s best for you. That’s been the biggest difference for me.

 

“I love coming in every day now, I love training. I’m trying to live every day and embrace every moment. I’m so happy I stayed.”

Experiencing trauma like that, “You learn loads of things,” he says. “Like how not to dwell on every tiny thing and critique absolutely everything that happens and think of it as the end of the world. The manager says to me all the time, ‘I want you to be happy, I want you to be smiling, I want you to be carefree because that’s when you get the best out of yourself’.

 

“The biggest thing is learning who is with you and who isn’t because when it’s great, everyone wants to speak to you and text you and be your friend. Suddenly, when you don’t do as well, that all stops.

“If it’s my brother, who I’m really close to, or my closest friends and family, if they have an opinion, then I’ll listen and respect them. I ask them about stuff every day. The same applies to coaches and team-mates, obviously, but this is outside of football. If it’s anyone else, I’ve sort of learned to not really give a fuck.”

There is a lot to be said for it.

 

Longstaff joined Newcastle’s academy at the age of nine. He is 25 now but does not disagree with the suggestion that after the false starts and frustrations, this feels like his breakthrough season. “Yeah, it’s the start of my journey in terms of playing lots of games,” he says. “I got lucky in pre-season with Jonjo (Shelvey) getting injured, but I’d worked really hard in the summer to try to fully establish myself and show how good I am.

“We get our stats back at the end of every season showing how much we played and I used to look at mine and be a bit pissed off and think ‘I’m better than that’. I’ve blown that out of the water this year. I just want to carry on. The game is made easier when you’ve got Bruno (Guimaraes) next to you and Tripps behind, but I’d like to think I help them, that I cover for them and work around them. I’ve just tried to run with it.”

Speaking anonymously to protect relationships, a team-mate of Longstaff’s, who we will refer to by the codename “Ban Durn” — any resemblance to Dan Burn, Newcastle’s left-back, is purely coincidental — provides some ammunition about the man behind the player.

 

“Ask him about Tommy the cat,” says Durn/Burn. “He’s only had it a few months and he never shuts up about it.” The message is followed by a laughing emoji.

So we ask.

 

“Yeah, he’s alright!” says Longstaff. An ambassador for Newcastle’s Foundation, he has been attending classroom sessions with local pupils. The midfielder sits up in his seat with a vague look of surprise. “He’s a black cat with white on his chest and white paws. We’ve just started letting him out into the garden, so he likes that. He’s starting to explore. He got stung by a bee the other day, so his paw was all massive and swollen.”

Are the rumours true that Longstaff takes Tommy for walks on a lead? “I sent a picture to Burny and Popey (Nick Pope) of me walking out of the house with him on a lead and Burny replied, ‘I’m going to drive down to yours and give you a slap’, but I was never actually going to take him,” Longstaff says. “I genuinely think Burny would chin me but I don’t have to anyway. He’s got the garden and he’s starting to climb the bigger trees. I’m like a worried parent, panicking as he goes higher.”

Our dressing-room mole comes back with more: “Ask him about his cowboy hat.”

This time, Longstaff dissolves. “Burny, man! He’s telling everyone my secrets. I know it’s Burny!” he says (no comment). “Burny told me to watch Yellowstone, the TV series, so I watched it and a few of the lads got into it and we were all chatting about it. I don’t know why it appeals but Kevin Costner is in it and he’s mint. The whole thing is mint: the ranch, the horses, all that cowboy stuff. I just really like it.

“Burny got a Yellowstone Monopoly game, so I went on the website to have a look and there was a cowboy hat, so I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll get one of those for Burny and Murphs’, so I ordered three of them, big massive hats, £300 each, not cheap like, and that was my gift to them. I sit in the house and watch Yellowstone and have my cowboy hat on. I’ve said when I retire that I want to buy some land and you’ll see me on a horse pretending I’m a cowboy.”

Has he worn it out and about in Newcastle?

 

“I haven’t,” he says. “But if we get into the top four, I definitely will…”

If that image feels bizarre, how about this one: two months ago, Newcastle were in a Wembley final. A club famous for never winning anything and never even trying have still not won anything, losing 2-0 to Manchester United, but that Carabao Cup weekend, when Trafalgar Square was a torrent of black and white, was a generational moment, one that felt like the ending of something and the start of something else. The great yearning is back.

How does Longstaff, a boyhood fan of the club, reflect on it now? “It was so surreal to be preparing for a cup final with Newcastle,” he says. “It was a million miles away from a couple of years earlier. It was stressful trying to sort tickets out, everyone asking for them, and it was just non-stop for three weeks and I think that showed when we got there. Mentally, we were ready for it to be over in a way.

“We had a little do afterwards with everyone’s families, which was really nice, and we had this collective thing of everyone saying, ‘We’ll use this to build on and the next time it’ll be with a trophy and a few more drinks’. We’ve looked at a lot of other teams and sports and the feeling is, ‘Before you can win, you have to know what losing feels like’. There are very few teams that just win straight away.”

And, oh bloody hell no, here comes a major mea fucking culpa on behalf of The Athletic, because maybe it was us what lost it.

 

“It was a really emotional weekend,” Longstaff says. “You did the article where family members wrote letters to players and we were having breakfast on the morning of the game and people were reading each other’s out and were in tears at the table. I was thinking, ‘We’ve got a cup final in six hours and everyone is crying their eyes out’. But things like that, I’ll remember forever.

“I remember reading through everyone’s letters and thinking about what it means to every person, every family. If anything, it made us want to win it even more for them. It wasn’t to be, but there’s no doubt in my mind this club is going to win trophies. For a lot of us, it was our first time playing in a game like that and it puts us in a stronger position. We just want to be around when it does happen.”

Please don’t brick our windows.

 

Alan Shearer on Longstaff: “See what fucking happens when they leave him out? That’s all the ammunition you need!!!” This is a reference to Aston Villa 3-0 Newcastle, the match before Tottenham when Longstaff was on the substitutes’ bench after a bout of tonsillitis.

 

One of Newcastle’s ownership group on Longstaff: “He’s a soldier in the trenches. He’s an emblem for us. He’s risen from the ashes.”

In the circumstances — 39 appearances in all competitions this season, with Newcastle third and flying and with Wembley behind them, at a good age and still improving —  it is not unreasonable to think Longstaff should be in the reckoning for England.

 

“It’s every kid’s dream,” he says. “I was never in a junior age group. England has always been something in the background and the one time I was going to go with them, I ended up doing my knee the week before, which wasn’t great. Of course, you want to be in the conversation about playing for your national team; you hear Popey, Tripps and Wils (Callum Wilson) speaking about it and I’d love to do it one day.

“I’ve played a lot of games this season but to get into the England team, you have to do it over a prolonged period, to show you can add value and, if I can get more goals and assists, then my game will elevate again. I have to be the best I can for Newcastle and what’s special about us is that we’ve got players from Brazil, Sweden and everywhere and we’re one big happy family. We love each other to bits.”

 

Inside Newcastle, unity pervades everything. After a decade and more of fracture, a team and its supporters are together again. Outside Newcastle, they are adored a little less. There is the 80 per cent ownership by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund which, in financial terms, threatens other clubs, and then there is sniping from managers like Manchester United’s Erik ten Hag and Thomas Frank of Brentford, who have complained about time-wasting or shithousing.

“We can match the top teams in way more areas and you can feel that when you play against them,” Longstaff says. “It’s a totally different game; just the fact we’re trying to get amongst them now. It’s not, ‘Ah, Newcastle — great fans, great place to play, but they’re bottom of the league and we’ll beat them’, and not having that respect. I’m not saying they’re worried now, but they’re certainly more cautious. We’ve changed that.

 

“The manager said to us at the start of the year, ‘It’s us against the world’ and that’s the mentality we’ve had. You see it in games where everyone is fighting together. People have blown the timewasting thing out of proportion. We take it as a little bit of a compliment. You don’t get to third or fourth by timewasting and we know we’re a very good side. We don’t really care that much, to be honest. We’ll carry on proving people wrong.”

It is astonishing that Howe, an outsider, has recognised this part of Newcastle’s identity, the bit that speaks of geographical isolation and being left to fend for itself. “It’s unbelievable,” Longstaff says. “It’s helped by the takeover and all the excitement, but he’s done such a good job of knitting everyone together. When this club, the city and everyone are on the same page, it’s so hard to beat, isn’t it?

 

“The power of it, the atmosphere now… I always thought our atmosphere was amazing, but this year has blown it away. Driving to the stadium, thinking about the noise and the flag displays, it gives you goosebumps.

“We’re not looking too far ahead because this group is probably only going to be together for this season. Changes will happen, players are going to come and leave, but we all get along so well and we want to be remembered. We hoped it would be for a trophy, but if we can get into the top four, this team will be remembered forever.”

 

Longstaff on Newcastle’s Quayside, laughing beneath a cowboy hat: well, that would be something very special indeed.

Benitez on Longstaff: “I’m very, very happy to see Sean doing so well. He was my target when I was at Everton, but unfortunately we didn’t do it…”

“We have a really good relationship,” Longstaff says of Benitez. “He still texts me every couple of weeks and he’s someone I respect massively, someone I’ll always be grateful to for seeing something in me. I was on a plane ready to go to Portsmouth on loan and he stopped it happening and kept me around. Rafa and the manager now are the people I owe most to in my career. If it wasn’t for those two, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Longstaff on running: “It’s demanding, it’s hard. There are a lot of early nights after training but there’s a reward at the end of it. It’s something I’ve been blessed with. I can run and run and when you hear the crowd come with you and hear the roar, all that tiredness leaves your body.”

 

Longstaff on Longstaff: “I’ll back myself to stay in the team. You have to. You see some of the names being linked with the club and think, ‘If those are the players they’re looking to replace me with, then I can’t be too bad!’. Whoever comes in, I’ll welcome them with open arms, but I won’t give my shirt up easily.”

First off, they would have to catch him. Good luck with that.

 

 

Here yer gan, I'm sure mods will remove if needed.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by TK-421

[Smal]

Steve Bruce was so shit, man

[AyeDubbleYoo]

  On 26/04/2023 at 08:32, Smal said:

Steve Bruce was so shit, man

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Should be in prison. 

[PauloGeordio]

  On 26/04/2023 at 08:32, Smal said:

Steve Bruce was so shit, man

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He was worse than shit, he sprinkled a few hundreds and thousands on top and tried to the polish the turd. Diabolical man. It had to be him before Eddie just as the polarising opposite. Eddie took the same turd and sculpted the fucking Taj Mahal. Still pinch myself watching the destiny of this juggernaut unfold. Unstoppable force ???

[Coffee_Johnny]

  On 26/04/2023 at 07:42, TK-421 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sean Longstaff interview: ‘I used to not like myself but I’ve learned not to give a f***’

George Caulkin

Apr 26, 2023

 

There are a few candidates for the player who best represents Newcastle United’s resurgence and here is the case for Sean Longstaff, the running man. Not too long ago, the midfielder was running out of road at St James’ Park – out of contention, out of sorts, out of love with football – and now just look at him: the dynamo of Eddie Howe’s team who has featured in every game in every competition this season. The one who has stayed at home to come home.

Running, always running; towards the Champions League, it looks like, and, who knows, perhaps towards recognition with England. “I feel like me again,” Longstaff says and he is smiling, laughing and, like the rest of Tyneside, he is released from the numbing purgatory of nothing. There is no time to waste. “I’ve missed out on a couple of years of learning, so I’m playing catch-up,” he says and this is why he runs.

 

Post-takeover, Newcastle have made some transformative signings, but when you look at the XI that blasted through Tottenham Hotspur, the fifth-best side in the Premier League with two World Cup winners and Harry Kane up front, the remarkable thing is how little they have changed. Longstaff, Fabian Schar, Joe Willock, Joelinton and Jacob Murphy were all at the club in the bad old days and Howe has moulded them into this gorgeous machinery of rage.

Before kick-off against Spurs, Kieran Trippier called Newcastle’s players together into a circle. They locked arms, bent forward and listened. “Pressure is a privilege,” the captain said and they played as if born to it. “We’ve had so long of looking at the table after every game and thinking, ‘Where’s the next win coming from?’ and that pressure makes you worried and tense, but this pressure is a privilege,” Longstaff says.

“Tripps says it before every game in our little huddle. Ultimately, the top four is where we want to get to. For a long time, we didn’t speak about it as players but we’re so close now, it’s only right we embrace it. We’ve put ourselves in such a good position; we have to give it everything. We’ve got to make the most of it.”

 

Stop running for long enough and the scale of what has happened at Newcastle, the familiarity and the contrast, makes your head spin. “It’s crazy even speaking about it,” Longstaff says. “I was watching the Champions League on the telly last week thinking, ‘We could be playing in this next season. We could be going up against these teams and seeing how good we are’. A year and a half ago, I didn’t know if was going to be here.

“I remember watching DVDs of Newcastle in the Champions League as a kid and that’s what you want to be part of, but I never thought it was achievable. I never thought in my career, in my lifetime, I’d be in a position to try to get Newcastle into the Champions League, so that’s where you’ve got to try to use that pressure.”

 

Seven games left. Seven more chapters to write. Once an afterthought, anonymous, rejected and now integral, Longstaff has seven more races to run.

Everton are first and, in another version of this career, this lifetime, Longstaff could have been running for them. Howe retreats back to January last year, back to when Newcastle were still flailing, to pinpoint the “key moment” in Longstaff’s recovery. Rafa Benitez, by then clinging on as manager at Goodison Park, was pushing to sign a player entering the final months of his contract, but Howe saw a future in him and fought.

To fully explain how good Longstaff is, how good he feels, how far he has run, we have to engage — briefly — with the bad. “It’s weird, looking back,” Longstaff says. “Before the new manager came to Newcastle, I wasn’t enjoying football. I wasn’t enjoying coming in every day and not really playing. In my opinion, I didn’t feel like I was getting massively coached into becoming the best version of me.

 

“Sometimes you have to do what’s best for yourself and Rafa gave me my chance at Newcastle and I’d played well for him, so it was natural to have a little look at that. Earlier in the season, I was ready to go. I knew Everton weren’t in the best of form and with Rafa being ex-Liverpool, it was tricky for him, but in my head, I’d probably got to the point of, ‘Right, that’s it, that’s my decision’. Sometimes you need a fresh start to go find yourself.”

Longstaff was Newcastle’s lost boy. He had surged to prominence in Benitez’s final season at St James’, earning comparisons to Declan Rice and links to Manchester United before a knee ligament injury curtailed his season. “It was perfect when I broke through,” he says. “I came in and did well and everyone loves you.” But then Benitez left, any pretence of ambition left with him, and the mood around the club curdled.

 

“When Steve Bruce came in as manager, I’d come back from injury and didn’t really feel like I was ready but sort of felt like I had to play,” Longstaff says. “And when you’re in that mindset and in that position, you’re never going to be able to play well and, over time, I just sort of …”

 

Like that sentence, Longstaff fell away. Newcastle were “ticking over”, in Bruce’s memorable phrase. The takeover was happening and then not happening. There was lockdown. There was stagnation. Mike Ashley, the owner, was only interested in getting out, or so it felt, and the club flatlined. Nobody and nothing was getting better.

 

Longstaff has spoken about his dismantling before but his honesty is still raw. “It was probably a culmination of things,” he says. “As much as I didn’t enjoy football, I think the biggest thing was I didn’t like me. I wasn’t great with family. Taking out my frustration. That’s bad because they’re always going to be there no matter what and they had to deal with me on some horrible days.

“It was little things. We’d go for a meal and I’m miserable in the corner because you take your job home, don’t you? Family holidays: I was there but I wasn’t there. I was a bit of an arse. Sulky, more than anything. I knew I had to change.

“Everyone probably knows the story of me having breakfast with my dad and my brother (in 2021, Longstaff told Newcastle’s official website how he broke down in tears while trying to eat with his family) — it got to that point where it hit the peak and that’s when I pretty much broke down and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m not in the right place here’.

 

“Matt Ritchie texted me that night and said, ‘Longy, you need to speak to someone’ and gave me the number of a psychologist and that was the start of it turning the other way. Two years down the line, a lot has changed.”

And Longstaff laughs again.

 

That brutal moment of self-discovery with David, his father, the former ice hockey player, and Matty, his brother and fellow Newcastle player, came in October 2020. Another followed 13 months later when Howe replaced Bruce. “After his first training session, I thought, ‘That’s totally different’. I loved every second. I didn’t play much at the start but I always thought the way he wanted to play really suited me, and once I’d got in…”

That January, when Everton came knocking, Howe showered Longstaff with love. “I needed it massively,” he says. “In my opinion, it was something that had been lacking in the two years prior. It’s like anything: as much as you’re a professional and an adult, if someone shows you a bit of love and affection and tells you how great you are, it’s nice to hear. I hadn’t heard it for a long time.

 

“I spoke to the new manager more that month than I’d spoken to the old one in two years, which is probably not a good sign. He told me what his plans were, how he saw me in the team. He said, ‘We’ll get you a new contract sorted’ — the club had just let me run into the last year of my deal. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t really think I believe you’, but it came true.

 

“My mentality shifted from being ready to go to, ‘You’ve got six months to save your Newcastle career’. I remember going home and saying, ‘I want to stay’ and that’s when I had to show him I really wanted to be part of it. I’ll forever be grateful. But the second I met him and his staff, knowing straight away he would help me get better as a player and person, I was ready to run through brick walls for him.”

Does Longstaff like himself now?

 

“Yeah, I think so!” he says. “Way more than I did. I think I’m nicer to be around and more chilled out. A lot of it is down to my team-mates and the staff. They’re always speaking to you about life, about everything. They’re there, they care and they want what’s best for you. That’s been the biggest difference for me.

 

“I love coming in every day now, I love training. I’m trying to live every day and embrace every moment. I’m so happy I stayed.”

Experiencing trauma like that, “You learn loads of things,” he says. “Like how not to dwell on every tiny thing and critique absolutely everything that happens and think of it as the end of the world. The manager says to me all the time, ‘I want you to be happy, I want you to be smiling, I want you to be carefree because that’s when you get the best out of yourself’.

 

“The biggest thing is learning who is with you and who isn’t because when it’s great, everyone wants to speak to you and text you and be your friend. Suddenly, when you don’t do as well, that all stops.

“If it’s my brother, who I’m really close to, or my closest friends and family, if they have an opinion, then I’ll listen and respect them. I ask them about stuff every day. The same applies to coaches and team-mates, obviously, but this is outside of football. If it’s anyone else, I’ve sort of learned to not really give a fuck.”

There is a lot to be said for it.

 

Longstaff joined Newcastle’s academy at the age of nine. He is 25 now but does not disagree with the suggestion that after the false starts and frustrations, this feels like his breakthrough season. “Yeah, it’s the start of my journey in terms of playing lots of games,” he says. “I got lucky in pre-season with Jonjo (Shelvey) getting injured, but I’d worked really hard in the summer to try to fully establish myself and show how good I am.

“We get our stats back at the end of every season showing how much we played and I used to look at mine and be a bit pissed off and think ‘I’m better than that’. I’ve blown that out of the water this year. I just want to carry on. The game is made easier when you’ve got Bruno (Guimaraes) next to you and Tripps behind, but I’d like to think I help them, that I cover for them and work around them. I’ve just tried to run with it.”

Speaking anonymously to protect relationships, a team-mate of Longstaff’s, who we will refer to by the codename “Ban Durn” — any resemblance to Dan Burn, Newcastle’s left-back, is purely coincidental — provides some ammunition about the man behind the player.

 

“Ask him about Tommy the cat,” says Durn/Burn. “He’s only had it a few months and he never shuts up about it.” The message is followed by a laughing emoji.

So we ask.

 

“Yeah, he’s alright!” says Longstaff. An ambassador for Newcastle’s Foundation, he has been attending classroom sessions with local pupils. The midfielder sits up in his seat with a vague look of surprise. “He’s a black cat with white on his chest and white paws. We’ve just started letting him out into the garden, so he likes that. He’s starting to explore. He got stung by a bee the other day, so his paw was all massive and swollen.”

Are the rumours true that Longstaff takes Tommy for walks on a lead? “I sent a picture to Burny and Popey (Nick Pope) of me walking out of the house with him on a lead and Burny replied, ‘I’m going to drive down to yours and give you a slap’, but I was never actually going to take him,” Longstaff says. “I genuinely think Burny would chin me but I don’t have to anyway. He’s got the garden and he’s starting to climb the bigger trees. I’m like a worried parent, panicking as he goes higher.”

Our dressing-room mole comes back with more: “Ask him about his cowboy hat.”

This time, Longstaff dissolves. “Burny, man! He’s telling everyone my secrets. I know it’s Burny!” he says (no comment). “Burny told me to watch Yellowstone, the TV series, so I watched it and a few of the lads got into it and we were all chatting about it. I don’t know why it appeals but Kevin Costner is in it and he’s mint. The whole thing is mint: the ranch, the horses, all that cowboy stuff. I just really like it.

“Burny got a Yellowstone Monopoly game, so I went on the website to have a look and there was a cowboy hat, so I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll get one of those for Burny and Murphs’, so I ordered three of them, big massive hats, £300 each, not cheap like, and that was my gift to them. I sit in the house and watch Yellowstone and have my cowboy hat on. I’ve said when I retire that I want to buy some land and you’ll see me on a horse pretending I’m a cowboy.”

Has he worn it out and about in Newcastle?

 

“I haven’t,” he says. “But if we get into the top four, I definitely will…”

If that image feels bizarre, how about this one: two months ago, Newcastle were in a Wembley final. A club famous for never winning anything and never even trying have still not won anything, losing 2-0 to Manchester United, but that Carabao Cup weekend, when Trafalgar Square was a torrent of black and white, was a generational moment, one that felt like the ending of something and the start of something else. The great yearning is back.

How does Longstaff, a boyhood fan of the club, reflect on it now? “It was so surreal to be preparing for a cup final with Newcastle,” he says. “It was a million miles away from a couple of years earlier. It was stressful trying to sort tickets out, everyone asking for them, and it was just non-stop for three weeks and I think that showed when we got there. Mentally, we were ready for it to be over in a way.

“We had a little do afterwards with everyone’s families, which was really nice, and we had this collective thing of everyone saying, ‘We’ll use this to build on and the next time it’ll be with a trophy and a few more drinks’. We’ve looked at a lot of other teams and sports and the feeling is, ‘Before you can win, you have to know what losing feels like’. There are very few teams that just win straight away.”

And, oh bloody hell no, here comes a major mea fucking culpa on behalf of The Athletic, because maybe it was us what lost it.

 

“It was a really emotional weekend,” Longstaff says. “You did the article where family members wrote letters to players and we were having breakfast on the morning of the game and people were reading each other’s out and were in tears at the table. I was thinking, ‘We’ve got a cup final in six hours and everyone is crying their eyes out’. But things like that, I’ll remember forever.

“I remember reading through everyone’s letters and thinking about what it means to every person, every family. If anything, it made us want to win it even more for them. It wasn’t to be, but there’s no doubt in my mind this club is going to win trophies. For a lot of us, it was our first time playing in a game like that and it puts us in a stronger position. We just want to be around when it does happen.”

Please don’t brick our windows.

 

Alan Shearer on Longstaff: “See what fucking happens when they leave him out? That’s all the ammunition you need!!!” This is a reference to Aston Villa 3-0 Newcastle, the match before Tottenham when Longstaff was on the substitutes’ bench after a bout of tonsillitis.

 

One of Newcastle’s ownership group on Longstaff: “He’s a soldier in the trenches. He’s an emblem for us. He’s risen from the ashes.”

In the circumstances — 39 appearances in all competitions this season, with Newcastle third and flying and with Wembley behind them, at a good age and still improving —  it is not unreasonable to think Longstaff should be in the reckoning for England.

 

“It’s every kid’s dream,” he says. “I was never in a junior age group. England has always been something in the background and the one time I was going to go with them, I ended up doing my knee the week before, which wasn’t great. Of course, you want to be in the conversation about playing for your national team; you hear Popey, Tripps and Wils (Callum Wilson) speaking about it and I’d love to do it one day.

“I’ve played a lot of games this season but to get into the England team, you have to do it over a prolonged period, to show you can add value and, if I can get more goals and assists, then my game will elevate again. I have to be the best I can for Newcastle and what’s special about us is that we’ve got players from Brazil, Sweden and everywhere and we’re one big happy family. We love each other to bits.”

 

Inside Newcastle, unity pervades everything. After a decade and more of fracture, a team and its supporters are together again. Outside Newcastle, they are adored a little less. There is the 80 per cent ownership by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund which, in financial terms, threatens other clubs, and then there is sniping from managers like Manchester United’s Erik ten Hag and Thomas Frank of Brentford, who have complained about time-wasting or shithousing.

“We can match the top teams in way more areas and you can feel that when you play against them,” Longstaff says. “It’s a totally different game; just the fact we’re trying to get amongst them now. It’s not, ‘Ah, Newcastle — great fans, great place to play, but they’re bottom of the league and we’ll beat them’, and not having that respect. I’m not saying they’re worried now, but they’re certainly more cautious. We’ve changed that.

 

“The manager said to us at the start of the year, ‘It’s us against the world’ and that’s the mentality we’ve had. You see it in games where everyone is fighting together. People have blown the timewasting thing out of proportion. We take it as a little bit of a compliment. You don’t get to third or fourth by timewasting and we know we’re a very good side. We don’t really care that much, to be honest. We’ll carry on proving people wrong.”

It is astonishing that Howe, an outsider, has recognised this part of Newcastle’s identity, the bit that speaks of geographical isolation and being left to fend for itself. “It’s unbelievable,” Longstaff says. “It’s helped by the takeover and all the excitement, but he’s done such a good job of knitting everyone together. When this club, the city and everyone are on the same page, it’s so hard to beat, isn’t it?

 

“The power of it, the atmosphere now… I always thought our atmosphere was amazing, but this year has blown it away. Driving to the stadium, thinking about the noise and the flag displays, it gives you goosebumps.

“We’re not looking too far ahead because this group is probably only going to be together for this season. Changes will happen, players are going to come and leave, but we all get along so well and we want to be remembered. We hoped it would be for a trophy, but if we can get into the top four, this team will be remembered forever.”

 

Longstaff on Newcastle’s Quayside, laughing beneath a cowboy hat: well, that would be something very special indeed.

Benitez on Longstaff: “I’m very, very happy to see Sean doing so well. He was my target when I was at Everton, but unfortunately we didn’t do it…”

“We have a really good relationship,” Longstaff says of Benitez. “He still texts me every couple of weeks and he’s someone I respect massively, someone I’ll always be grateful to for seeing something in me. I was on a plane ready to go to Portsmouth on loan and he stopped it happening and kept me around. Rafa and the manager now are the people I owe most to in my career. If it wasn’t for those two, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Longstaff on running: “It’s demanding, it’s hard. There are a lot of early nights after training but there’s a reward at the end of it. It’s something I’ve been blessed with. I can run and run and when you hear the crowd come with you and hear the roar, all that tiredness leaves your body.”

 

Longstaff on Longstaff: “I’ll back myself to stay in the team. You have to. You see some of the names being linked with the club and think, ‘If those are the players they’re looking to replace me with, then I can’t be too bad!’. Whoever comes in, I’ll welcome them with open arms, but I won’t give my shirt up easily.”

First off, they would have to catch him. Good luck with that.

 

 

Here yer gan, I'm sure mods will remove if needed.

 

 

 

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Thanks, man. Great read ?

[80]

Cool that Rafa is still keeping in touch with him.

[54]

Has there been a bigger indictment of how shite Bruce was then this?

 

Another followed 13 months later when Howe replaced Bruce. “After his first training session, I thought, ‘That’s totally different’. I loved every second. I didn’t play much at the start but I always thought the way he wanted to play really suited me, and once I’d got in…”

That January, when Everton came knocking, Howe showered Longstaff with love. “I needed it massively,” he says. “In my opinion, it was something that had been lacking in the two years prior. It’s like anything: as much as you’re a professional and an adult, if someone shows you a bit of love and affection and tells you how great you are, it’s nice to hear. I hadn’t heard it for a long time.

 

“I spoke to the new manager more that month than I’d spoken to the old one in two years, which is probably not a good sign. He told me what his plans were, how he saw me in the team. He said, ‘We’ll get you a new contract sorted’ — the club had just let me run into the last year of my deal. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t really think I believe you’, but it came true.

[Stifler]

  On 26/04/2023 at 08:38, PauloGeordio said:

He was worse than shit, he sprinkled a few hundreds and thousands on top and tried to the polish the turd. Diabolical man. It had to be him before Eddie just as the polarising opposite. Eddie took the same turd and sculpted the fucking Taj Mahal. Still pinch myself watching the destiny of this juggernaut unfold. Unstoppable force ???

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He didn’t even bother to do that, he just presented the shit and half arsed said it was chocolate ice cream.

[PauloGeordio]

  On 26/04/2023 at 09:27, Stifler said:

He didn’t even bother to do that, he just presented the shit and half arsed said it was chocolate ice cream.

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Whilst eating it to prove his point 

[MrRaspberryJam]

Good read. Good player. This time last year I was hoping we'd spend big on an upgrade on him but I'd be sad to see him drop out the XI now. He ran himself into the ground at the wrong time as he was a massive miss against Villa. He can't be too far down the pecking order for getting the armband if he's still doing the business for us in a few years time.

[TK-421]

  On 26/04/2023 at 09:27, Stifler said:

He didn’t even bother to do that, he just presented the shit and half arsed said it was chocolate ice cream.

Expand  

 

  On 26/04/2023 at 09:38, PauloGeordio said:

Whilst eating it to prove his point 

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[Donut]

Fantastic read that. I didn't know I was capable of hating Steve Bruce even more but here we are. Useless fat cunt.

[Paully]

Love this bit!

 

Benitez on Longstaff: “I’m very, very happy to see Sean doing so well. He was my target when I was at Everton, but fortunately we didn’t do it…”

 

“We have a really good relationship,” Longstaff says of Benitez. “He still texts me every couple of weeks and he’s someone I respect massively, someone I’ll always be grateful to for seeing something in me. I was on a plane ready to go to Portsmouth on loan and he stopped it happening and kept me around. Rafa and the manager now are the people I owe most to in my career. If it wasn’t for those two, I don’t know where I’d be.”

[SiLvOR]

So utterly depressing hearing how fucking shit Bruce was man. I know that's not news, but still. What a cunt.