Manager now says £3m Newcastle player has just had his best game

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Newcastle United are blessed at right-back.

Kieran Trippier, of course, has been one of the standout players Newcastle have had in the modern era, while Tino Livramento has impressed during his reasonably limited outings thus far.

Even Emil Krafth was playing arguably the best football of his Toon career prior to a serious knee injury, so it will be nice to see him back at some point.

All of that makes life difficult for Harrison Ashby.

Signed during the January transfer window for a reported fee of £3m, the 21-year-old is now on loan at Swansea.

Now, the defender has been praised.

Newcastle news: Harrison Ashby praised by Swansea manager

Indeed, Swans boss Michael Duff was delighted with what he saw from the former West Ham youngster during his team’s win over Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

“I’m really pleased for Harrison,” he told the club’s official website.

“I had a conversation with him yesterday and we went through his clips from Tuesday night and I said to him the whole intensity is nothing he’s ever been used to. He’s not been able to get through a whole 90 minutes and I said to him that’s the challenge, whether that’s a mental thing or a fitness thing.

“He’s had a full pre-season and he’s trained every day so that’s a challenge for him because what you don’t want in the position that he’s in and the competition that he’s got, if you’re a right back then you don’t want to be taking right backs off as subs.

“He finished the game very strong. That’s the best we’ve seen of him and hopefully he can grow from that.”

Harrison Ashby: Newcastle career looks complicated

While its promising to see Ashby impressing elsewhere, it’s hard to see how he gets much of a look-in at St James’ Park.

Trippier is still going strong, while Livramento has already made an impact in the first-team. Though Ashby has a lot of his career ahead of him, Eddie Howe hasn’t really loaned out the young players he’s rated thus far.

Elliot Anderson and Lewis Miley were both kept around the first-team after impressing, so it seems reasonable to assume Ashby would have been too had Howe seen enough.