Report: Newcastle not convinced by £28m man since his arrival at Newcastle in the summer

Yesterday we posed the question 'what's going on with Lewis Hall?' and today we have a bit more light shed on the subject via Fabrizio Romano and The Daily Mail..

Lewis Hall signed on an initial season-long loan from Chelsea in the summer in a deal that contains a £28million obligation to buy at the end of the season.

The 19-year-old arrived with huge potential and had Chelsea fans seething that the club had let him go and Newcastle fans jubilant at his arrival.

Hall has made just six appearances for Newcastle this season

Since then, however, Hall has made just six appearances in all competitions racking up a total of 234 minutes of actual playing time. In those appearances he's managed one goal in the Carabao Cup win over Manchester United, but other than that his performances haven't exactly been indicative of him being the wonderkid we were expecting.

Yesterday we threw out a few theories as to what is going on and the one we were most convinced by was that Eddie Howe isn't sure he's made the right move bringing Hall in and is now trying to ensure that Hall doesn't make the required amount of appearances to activate the obligation to buy. Something that has now been reported by Fabrizio Romano on X and in a report by The Daily Mail.

It's now looking increasingly like Hall's dream of a career at his boyhood club is about to end in disaster as he will return to Chelsea at the end of the season unless he manages to turn things around.

Eddie Howe still sees potential in Hall

While Howe couldn't say one way or another whether Hall will be at Newcastle next season, he did go on to praise the youngster:

"Lewis is a really talented player. He has huge technical qualities. He is creative and has very good final delivery. He’s a really good attacking full-back. He’s got certain things to learn defensively, which we’re working on with him.

"But he’s a young age and also recently converted to a left-back. There needs to be a little bit of understanding that he may take a little bit of time to get the defensive solidity that we’re looking for, but he’s a player of such high promise."

It looks like the door isn't completely closed on Hall's Newcastle United dream, but it is barely just ajar at this point.