A few Newcastle United fans have appeared to agree with head coach Steve Bruce that we do not need to target another central defender in January, despite our recent injury crisis.
Our New Years’ Day defeat at home to Leicester City saw the club’s injury problems mount up further, with five players sustaining issues during the game and are now doubts for Saturday’s trip to Rochdale in the FA Cup.
Defenders Javier Manquillo, Jetro Willems, Fabian Schar and DeAndre Yedlin all developed various issues against the Foxes, while midfielder Jonjo Shelvey joined the ever-growing injury report that now features 11 senior players.
Losing Schar on Wednesday meant there were four of our six centre-backs reporting for treatment at Darsley Park on Thursday morning, where Paul Dummett, Ciaran Clark and Jamaal Lascelles had already been admitted.
Despite only having Federico Fernandez and Florian Lejeune without injury, Bruce is not planning on using the January window to strengthen his core defensive numbers.
Bruce began the month aiming to sign a striker and a midfielder, and that very much remains the case.
“No, it’s not going to change my thoughts at all,” Bruce told reporters, via quotes by the Chronicle, when asked if our injury crisis had tweaked his January plans.
“As I said, we might get four or five back in the next week or two and I’ll say it again, if there is somebody out there that we can get and will make us better, then we’ll try that.”
Does Bruce need to sign another centre-back this month?
Yes
No
Bruce doubts Clark or Lascelles will be able to make their returns at Rochdale on Saturday, though Dummett is a possible returnee, which should offer the boss some relief with Willems and Manquillo likely ruled out.
Here are some of the messages shared as fans reacted to Bruce’s comment, and discussed whether or not we do need to make moves to sign another centre-back in January…
No a striker. If our defenders would defend properly and pass to their own players we wouldn’t have lost that heavily.
— Brian J Surrey (@BjsurreyJ) January 2, 2020
How many defenders do we need? I think we have enough.
— Mr Coatesy (@iancoates1963) January 2, 2020
Well, the fact that all our Strikers have scored 1 goal between them tells me that buying defenders shouldn’t even be the question !!
— Kevin Ivey 🏴🏳🏴 (@KevIvey85) January 2, 2020
Defence and keeper are the only areas we shouldn’t target
— Wendy Mann (@wm_mann) January 2, 2020
Probley need one or two wide midfielders and the priority should be a striker and sell Gayle and Muto
— Matty Duggan (@mattyduggan) January 2, 2020
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! We need a striker !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
— Chris Cossey (@Cosseycj) January 2, 2020
In other Newcastle United news, the club will look to sell a £54k-p/w player in the January market as part of a vast clear out at St. James’ Park.