Even though he’s currently away on international duty with England, Newcastle United full-back Tino Livramento still had questions to answer on last week’s devastating defeat.
Newcastle fans have been left with three weeks without club football to stew in the festering juices of that 2-1 derby defeat at St James’ Park last weekend.
Meanwhile, six of Newcastle’s squad linked up with the England squad as other players jetted off to join their respective national squads.
Six became five today for Newcastle as Aaron Ramsdale returned to Newcastle after being cut from Thomas Tuchel’s 35-man squad. However, the other five Newcastle stars remain for the game against Japan.
Tino Livramento keeps his spot in the squad after playing the full game against Uruguay on Friday, but it remains to be seen whether the 23-year-old will feature against Japan or if he’s rested by Tuchel.
Despite being at St George’s Park on international duty, when Livramento faced the media, he couldn’t avoid questions about that bruising defeat just over a week ago now.
Livramento spoke on the differences between club and international camps and admitted he had to snap out of the post-defeat funk quickly (via The Chronicle).
“Of course – it’s not nice losing a derby.
“You want to win every game, and we wanted to win that game more than anything for our fans. Sadly, it just didn’t go that way.
“Individually, it’s important to have that fuel you coming away. But it’s a different feeling with your country.
“At your club, it’s very intense and there’s no escaping that. With your country, it’s a different sort of vibe that you have to get used to instantly.”
Livramento’s Newcastle future is currently uncertain after putting contract talks with the club on hold until the end of the season. It’s a particular worry because Manchester City seem to be very keen on taking him off our hands.
We are leaning more towards the idea that we’re going to lose Tino this summer, but there’s a part of us hoping that he just put his contract talks on hold so that he could focus on the season and prove himself to be worth more in negotiations.
It looks as though Tino will be going to the World Cup, too, and if he stars over in North America, then he could demand even more from Newcastle to keep him on Tyneside, or it could give Newcastle more power to demand more money from Man City.
We’d obviously love him to stay, but if he is to go, if we can bring in top dollar, we can’t complain too much.