Jamaal Lascelles still holds the title of club captain at Newcastle, but his actual playing time has been sparse to say the least.
With Newcastle’s defence very much established now, especially given their place atop the throne of least goals conceded this season. Jamaal Lascelles finds himself relegated to the bench each week.
Now, Football Insider says that sources have told them that Newcastle will listen to offers for the 28-year-old defender in January.
Toon boss, Eddie Howe has regularly praised Lascelles in interviews, speaking extremely highly of his professionalism and how he still leads the team off the pitch in his role as club captain. But there’s no denying that players would rather be playing, and with that in mind, it would make sense for Newcastle to at least be open to letting Lascelles leave in order to find regular game time.
Such is the way that our current defence is set up, were we to lose a centre-back to injury, Dan Burn would likely fill that void and Matt Targett would resume his duties on the left before LAscelles would be brought into the fold.
Would You Let Lascelles Go In January?
Yes
No. Keep him till summer at least
Lascelles signed for Newcastle in 2014 and returned back to Nottingham Forest for the remainder of that season as part of the deal. Since then he has gone on to be an important fixture in Newcastle’s defence, and it was during a post-match interview when he laid into the team for not performing that he was made captain despite his young age. At one point there were even alls for him to receive an England call-up, but that never materialised and as time went on, his form dipped and fans started to turn against him.
He’s barely featured under Eddie Howe with Dan Burn and Fabian Schar developing a fantastic centre-back pairing in the latter half of last season, and now Schar and Botman have formed an even stronger partnership with Burn pushed out to the left-back role.
The Football Insider article quotes a price of £10m as the figure it would take to see Lascelles move on in January, but I think even half of that would be considered, especially if there are other targets in mind – the move could be made simply to free up squad space.