Sean Longstaff

[Zero]

I just think that probably explains why our players always keep injured again shortly after “coming back”

 

I completely disagree with this approach. I mean, it’s actually very fortunate that a player can fully recover from any injury. Just think if Botman cannot back to his best (pre injury) and keep on like this. We should have a very solid CB who can be our centrepiece for the next 10 years. The injury might have ruined it already.

 

Its just regular league match FFS. I care both the player and our clubs future more than that 3 points. I would be fine if it’s cup final. But no.

[54]

49 minutes ago, HawK said:

 

It proves that age itself is irrelevant, if a player is ready, they're ready. I think you can make an argument for maturity, physical development, player's game not being rounded enough etc. (the further back you play from the front, generally the more experienced you need to be), but purely based on age alone you don't need to protect people.

 

Howe might have meant things like that behind protecting him over 'age', but I can only go one what he's actually said.

That not the point is it? Lamine Yamal is playing a lot, but that doesn't mean that its the right thing for him, just look at Gavi who by the age of 19 has 111 games for Barcelona, and 27 games for Spain, with barely a summers break, and he's now got a serious long term injury, that by all accounts is due to being over played at a point he was still developing as a person. 

 

Or Pedri who played 133 times before 21, and now has had back to back muscle injuries. Or Ansu Fati, who got over played and who's development has been massively stunted and he's now been farmed out to Brighton. 

 

"Protecting a player" isn't about the here and now, its about protecting players who are still developing, and maturing, to ensure their career doesn't get hampered by injuries and he is able to reach his full potential. 

[Parsley]

Once Willock's fully match fit, we'll hopefully see Longstaff rotate more with Miley. Until that point, I can understand Howe's rationale. 

[nufcjmc]

He was a wheel in a cog due to a good engine last season covering alot of ground and allowing the better players to do their thing. He has settled between passenger and liability this season not sure I get Howe saying he needs to play more to look better the exact opposite is happening. 

Even last season he got into such good areas and was totally ineffective in front of goal I wanted him replaced. I really hope Tonali coming back and Miley see him drop of the managers plans next season.

From the presser we aren't going to make major changes so going to have to spread the money but he is trying single handedly to highlight midfield as a weakness area which sadly his selling fee right now wouldn't resolve. 

[Vaj]

I think there is probably a middle ground between the two arguments personally. Miley hasn't started any of the last three games but Longstaff has started all three of them and has been the worst I have seen him in years in two of them (Blackburn and Chelsea), playing 90 minutes twice and 120 minutes in the cup.

 

If he is struggling with an injury he should not have played all three of these games and Miley could have started one of them instead and for me is one of my concerns for this season in terms of the amount of injuries there have been, you do wonder if some can be avoided by rotating a little bit more. 

[nufcjmc]

2 minutes ago, Vaj said:

I think there is probably a middle ground between the two arguments personally. Miley hasn't started any of the last three games but Longstaff has started all three of them and has been the worst I have seen him in years in two of them (Blackburn and Chelsea), playing 90 minutes twice and 120 minutes in the cup.

 

If he is struggling with an injury he should not have played all three of these games and Miley could have started one of them instead and for me is one of my concerns for this season in terms of the amount of injuries there have been, you do wonder if some can be avoided by rotating a little bit more. 

Sounds like iam arguing with own point in the defence of longstaff but get Howe's point Miley is Willocks planned sub as Willock has been away so long he can't last the 90 and Anderson is also incapable of more than a cameo so unless he throws Joe White in or Lewis Hall he cannot really win here I guess. He could do Bruno/longstaff and Miley and use Willock and Anderson as impact subs but we would be crying out for Willock to start as we know them as a 3 doesn't work. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

35 minutes ago, nufcjmc said:

Sounds like iam arguing with own point in the defence of longstaff but get Howe's point Miley is Willocks planned sub as Willock has been away so long he can't last the 90 and Anderson is also incapable of more than a cameo so unless he throws Joe White in or Lewis Hall he cannot really win here I guess. He could do Bruno/longstaff and Miley and use Willock and Anderson as impact subs but we would be crying out for Willock to start as we know them as a 3 doesn't work. 

I think someone might have hit on what our problems this season have been

[HawK]

2 hours ago, 54 said:

That not the point is it? Lamine Yamal is playing a lot, but that doesn't mean that its the right thing for him, just look at Gavi who by the age of 19 has 111 games for Barcelona, and 27 games for Spain, with barely a summers break, and he's now got a serious long term injury, that by all accounts is due to being over played at a point he was still developing as a person. 

 

Or Pedri who played 133 times before 21, and now has had back to back muscle injuries. Or Ansu Fati, who got over played and who's development has been massively stunted and he's now been farmed out to Brighton. 

 

"Protecting a player" isn't about the here and now, its about protecting players who are still developing, and maturing, to ensure their career doesn't get hampered by injuries and he is able to reach his full potential. 

But with respect you're not talking about the 'point' either, maybe it's pedanticism on my part, but what I was saying is age alone isn't something you protect a player because of - it's age-related things. For every Pedri there's a Rooney, there's examples either way.

 

In this instance of not playing Miley and forcing Longstaff to play through injections though, I can't see how 'protecting' Miley is the right call here. 

[TRon]

Playing Longstaff through injury is a weird one. Could we not have found a midfielder on loan if things were really that bad?

 

Just confirms my suspicions that we wrote the season off in January basically.  Probably considered the cost of replacements for all the crocked players was going to do more long term harm than it was worth to try to salvage this one.

[Beth]

If Miley is 100% fit then we should be starting him ahead of Longstaff, there's only one game a week for the rest of the season ffs.

 

Longstaff is mid table championship standard who has played above himself but is now reverting to type. We should be peddling him to Boro for £10m in the summer.

[Tiotes Witch Doctor]

He's better than a championship player, could definitely be a starting CM at anyone from 13th downwards IMO.

[jackyboy]

I don't think it would take much for Longstaff to be injured. If he was out of breath or had a hole in his sock that would be an injury to him

[Pilko]

Mid table Championship standard   

 

We finished 4th in the Premier League a year ago with him as a mainstay and every time he dropped out of the side we looked shite. Goals in a cup semi-final and one against PSG this season too. But, according to some, he's not good enough if you wanted to push for a playoff spot against Norwich and Coventry.

 

He's in poor form and I want to see him sat down for a while as much as the next person, but some of these takes are mental.

 

I don't mind people saying they'd cash in for FFP purposes, I would too if we got a good offer but I think the most likely outcome is he becomes a helpful squad player who will show his usefulness when he has better, fitter, more confident players around him and he isn't shouldering the entire burden of a shattered side all season long.

 

Mid table Championship standard is the likes of Barlaser who we peddled for about 300 grand after a few cup games, not Longstaff with nearly 150 PL appearances under his belt FFS.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

2 hours ago, Beth said:

If Miley is 100% fit then we should be starting him ahead of Longstaff, there's only one game a week for the rest of the season ffs.

 

Longstaff is mid table championship standard who has played above himself but is now reverting to type. We should be peddling him to Boro for £10m in the summer.

I’m uncomfortable, I agree with Beth. 
 

But harsh but the overall point is correct. 

 

 

Edited March 15 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Thumbheed]

Eddie's exactly right with how he's handling Miley.

 

You can't overload a 17 years old week in week out in a team that is çonsistently inconsistent and expect him to bare any pressure that that might bring.

 

There's a pretty vocal crowd that's already turning on Howe, turned on Longstaff and Burn and after 3-4 poor games from Miley will turn on him too. 

[Jagten]

2 hours ago, Tiotes Witch Doctor said:

He's better than a championship player, could definitely be a starting CM at anyone from 13th downwards IMO.

Agreed, but I don't think he's an obvious starter for anyone outside of the bottom three. The standard of the league is extremely high, and his function is heavily dependent on the system. 

[Ridman]

He has played full 90 minutes in 11 of our last 12 premier league games, having minimal affect and ghosting around the field looking so far from his best.

Think our midfield has been very poor recently, so easy to play through and our ball retention has been awful with little improvement over the past months. Clearly something isn't clicking with the current setup and I really hope we try something different in the next games, can't see the harm in sticking Anderson or Hall in there instead of Longstaff. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17 by Ridman

[Newcastle Fan]

He has been so bad lately yet keeps getting selected, even young Miley looks far better than him in midfield and Anderson earlier in the season proved he can add something, yet i don't doubt he'll be starting again in two weeks time.

[gbandit]

The strange thing is that he could take Sean out of the team on account of playing through an injury and not damage Sean’s confidence. I just think Howe doesn’t like to change things unless he’s had a lot of time to work through things positionally with an alternative. It takes him ages to bring it into a match and even after several successful match performances he doesn’t like to persist with it. Given that our season is effectively a bit of a free hit for seventh at this point, without a huge amount riding on it, we should be playing Anderson and Hall for serious chunks of time unless there’s something glaringly missing for us fans that we’re not aware of

[Menace]

We'd be no worse off playing 442 last month or 2 rather than this passenger to be honest. If he is indeed injured as Howe says, it's even more baffling why he then plays him full 90..

[Lush Vlad]

2 hours ago, gbandit said:

The strange thing is that he could take Sean out of the team on account of playing through an injury and not damage Sean’s confidence. I just think Howe doesn’t like to change things unless he’s had a lot of time to work through things positionally with an alternative. It takes him ages to bring it into a match and even after several successful match performances he doesn’t like to persist with it. Given that our season is effectively a bit of a free hit for seventh at this point, without a huge amount riding on it, we should be playing Anderson and Hall for serious chunks of time unless there’s something glaringly missing for us fans that we’re not aware of

I agree with this.
 

I’m actually partly relieved that it was confirmed he was playing through an injury. As plenty of people thought that was the case and whilst I’m not his biggest fan. The drop off from last season was alarming and unexplainable, other than him carrying an injury. 
 

I know Willock and Anderson are not long back from injury and Miley is just a kid and needed a break. But I do hope Anderson and Miley start getting some

meaningful minutes in place of Longstaff moving forward. Especially as we now have two weeks until our next game. 
 

 

[jackyboy]

I think that Tonali was a massive piece of the jigsaw for us and not having him available has damaged us beyond belief 

[Anon]

Even the commentators said yesterday that they’d barely mentioned his name. he definitely has a valuable set of assets for the team but being forced to use him game in game out when not all the games are suited to him isn’t doing anyone a favour. 
 

He definitely falls into the category of player Howe was talking about shouldn’t be getting as much stick as he’s been asking them to play when they otherwise might not have been fit and ready. 

 

[Fezzle]

It's no coincidence we looked better and more comfortable when him and burn went off. Of course the city team were already on a night out by then but both were laughable when it was a game. Nobody will convince me it was the right team/game plan with his injury and form yesterday. Totally anonymous 

[sempuki]

Linked with Leeds (if they get promoted) for £15m in the Sunday Mirror.