Newcastle United will trot out the rarely utilized Yoshinori Muto to start vs. Leicester today.
Today, Newcastle United will kick off 2020 and the new decade with a home match vs. Leicester City. Steve Bruce made two changes to the starting XI that lost to Everton over the weekend, one of which being Javier Manquillo coming back into the fold for DeAndre Yedlin. But, the other change is bolder and could have a big impact on the match. Yoshinori Muto replaces Andy Carroll in the lineup and this will be a big chance for him to show his quality.
"Starting XI: Dubravka, Manquillo, Schar, Fernandez, Lejeune, Willems, Shelvey (c), Hayden, Almiron, Muto, and Joelinton."
A big factor here is that it’s Leicester City that he’s starting against. Among his limited chances to start this season, two of those matches have come against the Foxes, the Premier League blowout and the Carabao Cup defeat. He scored the lone goal for Newcastle in the latter and played a decent shift in the lopsided league match before subbing off at the break, largely due to Isaac Hayden’s red card.
The Japanese striker arrived in the summer of 2018 and he’s struggled to make an impact since then. This match could be a chance for him to show Steve Bruce that his work rate and ability to get in behind are worthwhile to have in the lineup or he could be auditioning for another team that’s scouting him. He’s rumored to be interested in a move away from Tyneside due to a lack of opportunities.
He will combine in the attack with Joelinton and Miguel Almiron. Muto could play as the center forward with the other two players on the wing or he could play out wide with some experiencing doing that for FC Tokyo.