Newcastle’s right-hand side has gone from its most effective attacking outlet to its least.
We all know that we missed the chance to improve our problem position (right-winger) over the summer, but Anthony Gordon did nothing before he was shifted to a central role after Isak’s injury, Tino Livramento lacked quality and Harvey Barnes was so sloppy, seeming to be on a mission to prove to management that it really is left side or bust for him.
With Gordon, it feels like shoehorning players into positions just to accommodate them is clearly reaching its breaking point. It’s a concept that is stretched so thin it barely has any merit left, and it is another failure of squad building. He is clearly at his best on the left, yet this is the only position (in attack) he didn’t play on Saturday.
Sure, when United took a £40m punt on Gordon they didn’t know he would develop as much as he has (but, admittedly, he is stinking up the place right now), so why then spend another £40m on Harvey Barnes for the same position? It’s just a bit of a mess, with Saturday ending up with a left-winger up top (Gordon), a forward-turned-midfielder (Joelinton) on the left (although more as a left-wing back!) and an out-and-out left-winger (Barnes) coming on down the right.
Joelinton isn’t a right-winger either, he can ‘do a job’ but a team pushing for European competition shouldn’t have players just ‘doing jobs’ for one-off games. The big Brazilian also lacks the technical quality or craft to hurt teams like Palace, where he spent most of his time tracking Munoz, not causing problems at the other end.
Then to Livramento, I feel he is limited by playing in a side with tactical instructions that don’t suit him, and he is being crowded and marked out of games. Not only that, for all of his defensive ability and athleticism, he is a level or two below Trippier from a technical point of view.
Clearly somebody has decided that Miguel Almiron’s time is up at Newcastle. He has been frozen out of any sort of game time and the same could be said of Trippier (but on a slightly lesser level), but if you are going to persist with the same tactics and the same attacking patterns and structures, surely the pair of them can’t be worse than what we are seeing from the right-hand side at the minute?
The right-side of our midfield three is also suffering from a lack of consistency. We hoped Sandro Tonali would slot in here, but his best football is coming as a No.6 lately. Sean Longstaff has often played in this right-sided No.8 role, but his on-ball limitations are clear against teams we should be beating and Bruno Guimaraes looked a little lost in that slightly more advanced right-sided role on Saturday.
A new right-winger is needed, to add an injection of life into Newcastle’s problem position and allow Gordon to move back to the left, but consistency from that side of our midfield and more attacking output from Livramento is also needed, with Howe forced to find in-house solutions before the January window opens in four weeks time.