One of football’s forgotten men, Massadio Haidara, returned on Monday night. But can he reclaim a position on the Newcastle left?
If Massadio Haidara arrived as a flagbearer of Alan Pardew’s French revolution, he now stands alone in the wreckage, wondering where it all went wrong. While Mathieu Debuchy, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Moussa Sissoko jumped from the sinking ship, Haidara found no airlock in which to escape.
Now entering his fifth season at St James’, the 23-year-old is no nearer to the Newcastle first-team – in fact, you could argue that he’s further away than when he arrived from Nancy as a sprightly, energetic bundle of energy on the Magpies’ left wing.
Haidara has featured just 37 times in four Premier League seasons, with David Santon (below) and latterly Paul Dummett filling the role to varying degrees of effectiveness in his absence.
Injuries have taken their toll. That studs-up stamp from Wigan’s Callum McManaman appears to have had longstanding implications. According to Transfermarkt, Haidara has been unavailable for 52 games since the start of 2014. His presence for Newcastle’s Under-23s against Stoke on Monday night, however, suggests a glimmer of light at the end of a winding tunnel.
Yet, doubts remain about Haidara’s first-team future. The plethora of summer departures, from Pardew favourites such as Papiss Cisse, Steven Taylor (below) and Fabricio Coloccini, to disappointing imports Henri Saivet, Florian Thauvin and Remy Cabella, proves that current manager Rafa Benitez is not going to wait idly by for an improvement.
Haidara, if indeed he does return, will probably not be afforded a lengthy transitional period.
Then again, Newcastle’s left-back position is hardly under lockdown. Dummett has started five of six Championship games, even captaining the side against Reading, but he is hardly a flying full-back fit for the modern age. According to WhoScored, he averages just 1.4 crosses per game, so it’s difficult to shake the feeling that Dummett (below) is little more than a square peg in a slightly rectangular hole.
Haidara, although erratic defensively and far from efficient with his end product, at least offers greater energy going forwards. It may be too early, then, to rule out any chance of a Haidara renaissance.
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