I'd be very worried about his game ability at this point... He's been sitting on a bench now for two seasons. That's never been good for any player and I'm not entirely sure I ever remember a bench warmer getting back to their best.
Saying that, I do have a lot of admiration for Eddie Howe's man management and we've seen that in spades with the Newcastle squad and some excellent re/awakenings.
That’s the risk and at 7million doubt it will happen.
If he has at least 75% of his Leeds ability he vastly improves Newcastle. Long range passing. Ability to drop back into a back 3 when ever a fullback plows forward.
Sit at the base of our attack. At the min we expect Bruno to progress the ball out of defence and be the main creative in attack. It has worked up to the point but now we can’t do it because of fitness levels. Same as last season when Longstaff was missing. He had the energy to make recovery runs when we lost the ball. Hence all the missing you memes.
Kev on twitter did a fantastic write up showing no other team as suffered as many counterattacking shots than Newcastle as more teams play lowblock and just hit us on the counter.
We lack the ability to make recovery runs due to fitness. Hence all the goals you see from teams breaking straight up the middle which is the worst type of counter attack as they lead to better goal scoring opportunities. You want the counters to be down the wing.
We can’t control games when we take the lead. We have fantastic energetic 8’s but don’t have that out and out 6. Bruno and Sandro can play there but that’s not their main play style.
Just having an out and out DM that will sit at the base of the midfield 3 will even out team. Bruno goes forward Longstaff or Joelinton have to drop back and cover the gap and makes out attacks very one sided.
We don’t even need a starter. Just have that option on the bench. Throw on a DM when legs gets tired or when the game is tight.
It doesn’t have to be Philps but he’s pretty decent and available this window.