As many Newcastle United fans will have seen, Jamaal Lascelles recently sat down with Sky Sports for an in-depth interview about his time on Tyneside and his connection with the club.
Listening to him speak so fondly about his time in black and white got me thinking about the current Newcastle squad.
There is no shortage of talent for Matthias Jaissle, but there is also a lot of youth. With that comes the inevitable naivety that can sometimes show itself on the pitch, as well as a lack of experience of what it is like to play for a club going through such significant change.
That is where bringing in a profile who has similar experiences to someone like Lascelles could have been invaluable.
Jamaal Lascelles understood Newcastle
Now, don’t get me wrong, Newcastle still have leaders.
Dan Burn and Fabian Schär immediately spring to mind, while there are also several players within the squad who grew up supporting the club and understand what Newcastle means to its supporters, like Jacob Murphy.
But what Lascelles had was something slightly different.
He joined Newcastle from Nottingham Forest at just 20 years old and went on to experience almost every side of the club during his time on Tyneside, something he summed up rather perfectly in his Sky interview.
“I absolutely love Newcastle. I think I was there since I was 21. Seen everything, different managers, relegation, promotion, everything.”
And that is exactly the point. He was there through the difficult years, including relegation, the constant pressure surrounding the club, and the frustration of watching Newcastle struggle to match the expectations of its supporters.
But Lascelles also experienced the transformation from a club fighting to survive into one competing in Europe and eventually returning to the Champions League.
That means his understanding of Newcastle is not simply based on being a supporter or playing for a successful Premier League team, which is a unique perspective that not many players in world football get to experience during their playing career.
A Lascelles-type leader could do wonders
I don’t think I really need to make this explicit, it should already be apparent, but I’m not advocating for a sensational Newcastle United return for former club captain Jamaal Lascelles.
Instead, it is about the value of having a player around who has been through the difficult periods as well as the good ones.
It’s worth noting that I’m not even saying they need to have had these experiences at Newcastle United. But a player who has seen a club go through a rollercoaster of a transformation under any circumstances can bring a perspective that young players don’t necessarily have.
Footballers arriving at Newcastle today are joining a very different club to the one Lascelles joined in 2014.
For many of the current squad, Newcastle is already an ambitious club with significant financial backing, Champions League expectations and a fanbase that expects to see the team competing at the top end of the Premier League.
They haven’t experienced what came before it, but they are coming into a transitional period this season which will throw up some chaos and uncertainty along the way.
That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be capable of handling adversity themselves in time, but experience of difficult situations can be invaluable when things start going wrong.
We have already seen glimpses of the naivety that can come with such a young squad this season, with the defeat to Leeds perhaps the cleanest example.
The Magpies struggled to respond after conceding the opening goal and never really looked capable of dragging themselves back into the game - ultimately ending up 3-0 down at half-time.
Of course, one result doesn’t prove that the squad is devoid of leadership or doesn’t have bounce-back ability, but it does highlight why having players who have experienced difficult moments can be so important.
Of the current squad, Schär is probably the closest thing Newcastle have to a Lascelles-type figure in terms of longevity, having now spent a significant portion of his career on Tyneside.
But even Schär arrived at Newcastle in 2018, after Lascelles had already spent several years battling in the trenches with the club at its lowest ebb.
Having a profile with these sorts of experiences isn’t about constantly reminding the squad of how bad things used to be or romanticising the past. But what they can benefit from is having people who understand what that sort of journey looks like, and can help those younger players navigate the changing expectations that come with it.
A deeper understanding
You can see the sort of feeling and emotion that Newcastle United can evoke when a player embraces the culture just through listening to Lascelles speak about the club and his desire to come back in the near future.
“I would love to go back and just say a proper goodbye and a thank you, more than anything, to the fans. I can’t thank them enough, so supportive.”
The current Newcastle squad has plenty of talent, ambition and looks to be heading in a very positive direction.
But they haven’t yet built that deep connection with the club and fans, something which can be helped by either experiencing everything alongside the supporters, or being taken under the wing of someone who has lived a similar journey themselves.
And that is perhaps the biggest thing someone like Lascelles could have offered Newcastle if he were still around today: not simply leadership, but an understanding of how to navigate those tough periods and really embrace the culture of the club, no matter what.
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