Eddie Howe has lavished praise on Newcastle’s Joelinton ahead of the clash with West Ham United tomorrow.
Joelinton has been reinvented as a central midfielder under Howe and the first glimpse of that capability came out of necessity.
When Newcastle went down to ten men against Norwich in one of Howe’s first games, Joelinton was pressed into action as an emergency central midfielder.
That is how it has stayed and Howe says there is even more to come from the Brazilian.
“I think I’d be lying if I said that I knew he was capable of that when I started to work with him,” he said.
“The first time I was aware of his tactical understanding was the Norwich game when he filled in after the sending off.”
“His delivery of what we’ve asked him to do has been excellent. Defensively, he’s added a lot to the team.
“His ability in recovering long distances, tackling and intercepting the ball has been of the highest level. I can’t praise him enough and I know there’s more to come.”
Joelinton is a man reborn under Howe and both men deserve a huge amount of credit for that.
The Brazilian had become a figure of fun and that is not easy to come back from, especially at a club which now has the spending power to replace him.
It is clear now that there was always a player in there, he was just deployed wrongly and asked to do the things which were not his strengths.
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