Jonjo Shelvey has played a big part in Newcastle United picking up their form in recent weeks.
Danny Murphy has lauded Jonjo Shelvey for his changing his fortunes around at Newcastle United after he hardly featured under Rafa Benitez during the last campaign.
It wouldn’t have been a surprise to many if Shelvey did leave Newcastle in the summer, but since Steve Bruce’s arrival, he has slowly introduced the midfielder back into the fold and he is thriving.
Newcastle have picked up back-to-back wins in the Premier League with Shelvey playing a big part in both, including scoring a brilliant free-kick at the London Stadium.
Speaking to Drive on TalkSport (12/11/19 at 4:40 pm), Murphy was full of praise for Shelvey as he described him as a ‘wonderful footballer’, who Rafa Benitez wasn’t a big fan of.
“One of the other factors [behind Newcastle’s change in form], which some people will agree with and others won’t is that Shelvey is hugely important to that team,” Murphy told TalkSport.
“Although he’s not the most athletic in the world and there’s the talk of ill-discipline, which we have seen, he’s a wonderful footballer and he gives them so much creativity and he has been great during these last few games.
“He [Bruce] is not scared to make big decisions…especially when Rafa had a couple of bad spells when the team wasn’t winning, and Shelvey wasn’t in. I always thought he was the one who could change things, but Rafa wasn’t a big fan.”
Before Bruce even walked through the St James’ Park doors there was unrest amongst supporters who weren’t keen on him becoming their manager.
The season didn’t start off too well, but Bruce has managed to pick up valuable wins along the way and in recent weeks, he has added consistency to Newcastle’s game.
Bruce will be hoping that continues after the international break when he returns to his former club Aston Villa.
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