Joe Willock shares what he was told at half-time yesterday

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Joe Willock had to be patient for his goal to finally come against Manchester United as Newcastle United eventually ran out 2-0 winners.

Willock had another brilliant game for Newcastle yesterday against Manchester United as he continues to get better and better under Eddie Howe. However, there was one aspect of his game that just wasn’t clicking in the first half – his shooting.

The £25million signing from Arsenal spurned a couple of magnificent opportunities in the first half. After David De Gea palmed away a sublime Alexander Isak header the ball landed at the feet of Willock who then tapped it back off the prostrate keeper. If he’d put some power on it or aimed literally anywhere else, Newcastle would have been 1-0 up. Then later the ball fell to Willock in the box with just De Gea to beat, he put his laces through it and sent the ball high and wide. If he’d got over the ball instead of leaning back and maybe dialed down the power a bit, it would have been a different story.

‘We have a brilliant group here’ – Joe Willock

Willock’s cool head and persistence paid off on 65 minutes as he nodded home Newcastle’s opener and at full time Willock shared what he was told at half-time that helped him stay focused. Speaking to NUFC TV, Willock said: “I was a bit disappointed not to score in the first half. I had a couple of chances and they didn’t go in for me.

“But as I said before, we have a brilliant group here and brilliant staff members who picked me back up at the half-time interval and told me keep chipping away and it’ll come and it did, so I’m really happy to be honest.”

It seems strange that it’s goal scoring that Willock needs to work on these days given his heroics scoring seven in seven for Newcastle while on loan from Arsenal in the second half of the 2020/21 season. It was in the summer of 2021 that Willock made his move to Tyneside permanent but life as a Newcastle player didn’t get off to the best of starts.

Willock has worked hard to get to the levels we knew he was capable of

Willock seemed a shadow of the player we’d come to love, the goals dried up and the performances withered. Thankfully, under Eddie Howe we’re seeing a whole new Joe Willock.

His game is not as dependent on goals these days, he’s become a more complete midfielder under Howe’s tuition, running from box to box looking to create openings alongside Bruno Guimaraes. The goals are starting to come as a byproduct of that relentless energy.

There are now calls for Gareth Southgate to give Willock the England call-up his work deserves. There are players getting in that England squad ahead of Willock who have barely kicked a ball all season. It’s criminal. If Willock continues to play as well as he did yesterday, though, Southgate will not be able to ignore him for much longer.