Identifying the weakest part of this Newcastle United’s team is like trying to pick out the worst performance in 2019’s PTSD-inducing, CGI body-horror that was the Cats remake; there are just too many to choose from.
Their midfield looks ponderous, their centre-backs sluggish, their right-back options the epitome of mediocrity.
And then there is Joelinton, starting games week in, week out despite scoring just three Premier League goals since the turn of the year.
Where would they be without Callum Wilson’s efforts, Allan Saint-Maximin’s magic and Joe Willock’s jump-starting, season-changing impact? The Championship, probably.
Will Newcastle finally sign a top-class left-back?
But it is impossible not to feel some pang of sympathy for poor old Matt Ritchie.
Yes, the Scotland international has made his fair share of mistakes this season, switching off at the back post on countless occasions and shouldering the blame for a decent portion of the 19 league goals Newcastle have conceded already, but any criticism of Ritchie’s performances must be taken with a spoonful of context.
The 32-year-old is not a left-back, he has never been a left-back and it is only because of Jamal Lewis’s own poor form that he is being asked to play in a position that requires a specialist operator, rather than a square peg in the roundest of holes.
Ritchie may be a weak link in this Newcastle side yet the criticism should not fall on him but on the club’s recruitment department, on Mike Ashley, on the now-departed Steve Bruce.
It is not as if Newcastle’s struggles at left-back are anything new.
It’s a problem that arguably goes back a decade, since the days of a young Davide Santon, when Alan Pardew was the LMA Manager of the Year and Newcastle were 90 minutes away from the Europa League semi-finals.
Signing Theo Hernandez from AC Milan, then, would be a very fitting way to kick off the new Saudi Arabian era.
One of Europe’s finest left-backs, replacing Ritchie with the swashbuckling Frenchman would be akin to trading in your tattered old Nickelback CD for an original pressing of Another Brick in the Wall.
Hernandez, a former Real and Atletico Madrid youngster, is a bullet train of a footballer, fast, aggressive and highly creative, like a young Gareth Bale in his first Tottenham spell.
Hernandez produced eight goals and eight assists from left-back last season and scored the winner in France’s UEFA Nations League semi-final victory over Belgium this month.
Of course, the prospects of Hernandez swapping Milan for Tyneside look slim. Calciomercato believe that he would cost a club-record fee of £60 million – more than Newcastle’s entire January budget – while their interest is understood to be linked with an approach for Antonio Conte, the Serie A-winning manager who has distanced himself from the St James’ role.
But with the Public Investment Fund looking to drag Newcastle from the depths of mediocrity, and spend heavily while doing it, there really are no excuses for relying on an ageing, 30-something Scot in a position that is not his own.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
