Sean Longstaff shares how Eddie Howe has revived his Newcastle career

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Sean Longstaff’s Newcastle United career looked doomed under Steve Bruce but Eddie Howe came in and has turned his career around.

In an eye-opening interview with The Athletic, Sean Longstaff hasn’t held back when talking about the differences between life under Eddie Howe and Steve Bruce.

There was a feeling amongst the Newcastle fans that Steve Bruce was taking the mick, like he didn’t care that the club was falling apart under him. The players hardly trained which was evident when other teams would start running rings around us after 70 minutes and our players looked like they needed gas and air.

Steve Bruce almost ended Sean Longstaff’s Newcastle career

He spent more time in Portugal than he did at Benton and he seemed oblivious to how poor the team were. For an alleged fan his lack of love for the club was shocking.

By the sounds of it, his apathy extended to his squad too with Sean Longstaff issuing a damning statement in his interview. Speaking about last January when he almost moved to Everton and Howe talked him out of it, Longstaff said: “I spoke to the new manager more that month than I’d spoken to the old one in two years, which is probably not a good sign. He told me what his plans were, how he saw me in the team. He said, ‘We’ll get you a new contract sorted’ — the club had just let me run into the last year of my deal. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t really think I believe you’, but it came true.

“My mentality shifted from being ready to go to, ‘You’ve got six months to save your Newcastle career’. I remember going home and saying, ‘I want to stay’ and that’s when I had to show him I really wanted to be part of it. I’ll forever be grateful. But the second I met him and his staff, knowing straight away he would help me get better as a player and person, I was ready to run through brick walls for him.”

Sean Longstaff is an integral part of this Newcastle team

When Sean Longstaff burst onto the scene under Rafa Benitez we thought we’d finally produced a top quality player from our academy, but under Bruce, Longstaff was going backwards.

Since Eddie Howe has come in, Longstaff has gone from strength to strength and is back to being the player we all thought he could be. This season started slowly for the Geordie and I’ll admit I was very critical of him in the opening games, but now I won’t have a bad word said against him.

He’s so integral to the team now that we missed him massively against Aston Villa where he was relegated to the bench due to recovering from tonsilitis. He eventually came off the bench but the damage was done by then.

Reinstated to the team for the game against Tottenham he looked phenomenal again and capped his performance with a superb assist for Alexander Isak to bag Newcastle’s fifth goal.