Continuing our “State of the squad” series, let’s look at what Newcastle United have at the centre of the pitch and what Rafa Benitez can do with those pieces.
We will focus more on defensive midfielders and centre-midfielders today, so, despite Gini Wijnaldum, Moussa Sissoko and even Siem de Jong playing some minutes there last season, they will be more featured in the next pieces, about attacking midfielders and wingers, where they played the majority of the time.
So, last season we had a lot of different pairs of CMs, starting with a combination of Jack Colback and Vurnon Anita. Cheick Tiote was having some opportunities and even Yoan Gouffran played there, without success. The transfer window came and Newcastle bought Jonjo Shelvey and Henri Saivet to become the new pair of CMs and the answer to our problems, but it did not work as expected too. It was only after Rafa Benitez came in that finally the Magpies found some stability at that positions. Tiote recovered his best form and alongside Colback could offer good protection to the defense, even if it cost some creativity on the other side of the field.
Let’s look at our CMs, how they fared and what we can expect from then for the next season.
PS.: Anita already profiled on full-backs piece here, since he ended the season playing this position and is a potential starter there for the next season.
