Jonjo Shelvey delivers 'poor' verdict on one £55m Newcastle United signing and questions why club signed Yoane Wissa
Former Newcastle United midfielder Jonjo Shelvey has been speaking to talkSPORT this morning about the current situation at the club.
Now playing in the second division in Saudi Arabia, Jonjo Shelvey was part of the squad when Eddie Howe took over at Newcastle before he was sold to Nottingham Forest.
While many fans criticised Shelvey for being lazy, he was an important player for the club and on his day, he was magic.
It seems that Shelvey still has a lot of respect for Eddie Howe, too, as he doesn't feel the pressure on the Toon boss right now is justified, but he says he does understand the cut-throat nature of football.
Jonjo Shelvey hasn't been impressed with Newcastle's summer recruitment
The former Liverpool man was a touch less complimentary about his former Nottingham Forest teammate and current Newcastle winger, Anthony Elanga who has failed to find any kind of form since his £55 million summer switch. He also doesn't seem to be too impressed with Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa.
"I think Elanga's been poor to be honest. I mean, he scored a great goal against (Manchester) City but apart from that I don't think he suits the way Newcastle play football. I think he's more suited to a counter-attacking team where a team sits back and he hits them on the counter and drags the team up the pitch with the ball.
"With woltemade I think they need to put crosses in the box and utilise his height, although he can play with the ball to feet. But again, the way Eddie likes to play in that higher pressing system, is he one that's going to go and do that? And I'm I'm not too sure on on Wissa. I don't know why they've signed him but icompared to what what they had in (Alexander) Isak, I don't think he's a patch on Isak."
Eddie Howe's stubbornness is a big problem
One of the biggest criticisms levelled at Eddie Howe this season has been how he's not playing to the strengths of his players and is instead trying to get the players to fit into his system.
We get that there has to be a compromise somewhere, a player has to understand that they will be asked to play in a different way to how they played at their last club, but surely the manager also has to acknowledge how certain players prefer to play a certain way and how the team can adapt to take advantage of that.
This is exactly what Shelvey is talking about here. Why we aren't telling Woltemade to get into the area and wait for crosses, or using Anthony Elanga's pace to hit teams on the counter, we just don't know.
We also don't understand the Yoane Wissa signing right now, but he missed four months through injury and came in at a time when the rot had already started, so we don't want to judge him too much, but we did expect more from him after his goal scoring exploits for Brentford last season.
