Archived News from February 2022
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LONGSTAFF ARTICLE
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Matty Longstaff: From dream Newcastle debut and £20,000-a-week contract to fresh start in League Two theathletic.com, By Nancy Frostick and Chris Waugh, 16 Feb 2022 So desperate were Newcastle to source game time for Longstaff that it is believed they are continuing to pay the vast majority of his wages. Mansfield are only contributing a tiny fraction - he actually earns more in basic terms than his brother, Sean, who has made 15 Premier League appearances this season. Matty Longstaff knows how to make an impact on his debut - his was, after all, one of the most famous in the Premier League’s recent history. On his league bow in October 2019, the Newcastle United academy product collected the ball from Jetro Willems and sent a low, driven shot from 20 yards flying beyond David de Gea to seal a 1-0 win over Manchester United. Aged 19 years and 199 days, he remains the youngest debutant to score for Newcastle in the Premier League. “Matty Longstaff, he’s one of our own” rang St James’ Park as Steve Bruce’s decision to give a chance to the “ginger lad” who had stood out during the pre-season trip to China paid off. That day two and a half years ago could not have seemed further away when, wind swirling around Mansfield Town’s One Call Stadium, he watched over his new side’s gritty 2-1 win against Colchester United in League Two last week. When the stadium announcer introduced Longstaff to home fans, his name was met with a ripple of applause. However, Longstaff would remain seated on the bench throughout, with Nigel Clough, the Mansfield manager, deeming the game too close to introduce a debutant, even one who is paid £20,000 a week by his parent club, several times more than his new team-mates. Instead, Longstaff was made to wait for his bow, lining up for the promotion chasers against Bristol Rovers on Saturday. On the opposite side at the Memorial Stadium, Elliot Anderson, a fellow Newcastle academy graduate, was making his home bow. Though both players have been sent out to the fourth tier on loan by Newcastle, they have done so at different stages in their development. read more at https://theathletic.com/3117925/2022/02/15/matty-longstaff-from-dream-newcastle-debut-and-20k-a-week-contract-to-fresh-start-in-league-two/?source=user_shared_article While Anderson’s career appears on the rise, Longstaff’s has become ditched - and, a few months ago, a move to Mansfield was never part of his plan. Yet things are rarely simple in football, and the increasingly rapid decline of Longstaff’s Newcastle career from those highs against Manchester United - he also scored at Old Trafford in December 2019 - has been anything but. However, on this occasion, the truth regarding Longstaff’s prospects is there to see with startling clarity. The 21-year-old needs to impress in League Two if he is to get his career back on track - and even then it is becoming increasingly unlikely he will secure a long-term future at Newcastle in their nouveau riche era. Regardless, supporters still look back on the younger Longstaff’s ascent into the first team with a lingering romance. Bruce had started Matty alongside Sean, local lads and fans, against Manchester United in what seemed like a significant gamble. Yet they excelled to such a degree that there was genuine hope the brothers could establish themselves at the heart of Newcastle’s midfield for years to come. But, in total, Bruce opted to play the siblings together on six further occasions. While Sean has established himself in the first-team squad, with 86 appearances, Matty has barely featured, despite being handed the No 4 shirt last season. The reality for the younger Longstaff is that protracted contract negotiations, fitness problems and a failure to impress have hampered his progress. During the summer of 2020, the relationship between Longstaff and Newcastle reached a critical point as contract discussions dragged as his deal ran down. There was serious interest from Italian outfit Udinese and their owners, the Pozzo family, who entertained Longstaff on a flight on a private jet in an attempt to woo him, before reportedly tabling a £30,000-a-week offer. Inter Milan, Marseille and a Bundesliga club monitored his situation. But Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s former managing director, remained quietly confident that Longstaff would opt to stay at the club he grew up supporting. After Bruce intervened and promised Longstaff first-team opportunities, the young midfielder first agreed a short extension to stay during Project Restart, before eventually signing a new two-year, £20,000-a-week deal, but only after technically becoming a free agent for a fortnight. This contract represented an eye-watering rise from his £850-a-week deal, his first professional contract. Fan sentiment towards the midfielder played a significant part in Newcastle paying significantly more for a player of his experience than they would have typically done so. Since then, struggles for fitness and favour have forced Longstaff on loan in search of game time, after just 20 appearances for Newcastle. Last summer, finding a club for Longstaff was not a simple task, with suitors concerned by his lack of minutes. He signed a contract extension for a further year as part of plans for him to head out on loan this season, which means he now has 18 months left to run on his Newcastle deal, with a wage reduction built into that extension and set to kick in next season. He joined Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership for the first half of the season, a move that was questioned by some close to him even before he had played a game. Unfortunately, in the end, those concerns proved well-founded as he started just three games and he was recalled early in December. Longstaff’s opinion is that Scottish football was too direct for him, saying: “It was an eye-opener... a bit of a long-ball kind of game.” Many in Scotland counter that, insisting that, despite Aberdeen’s struggles, Stephen Glass had attempted to play progressive football before his sacking this week. Although Longstaff’s move to Mansfield surprised many, it came about partly due to a lack of alternatives. Eddie Howe, the Newcastle head coach, watched Longstaff during training, even taking the midfielder to Saudi Arabia for a week-long training camp in Jeddah, but, like Bruce before him, deemed that the 21-year-old required regular football. Longstaff was offered to clubs throughout the EFL but, primarily due to his lack of football, no Championship nor League One club was willing to take him. Instead, after Longstaff had turned down the opportunity to join other fourth-tier clubs earlier in the window, he accepted Mansfield’s offer on deadline day. So desperate were Newcastle to source game time for Longstaff that it is believed they are continuing to pay the vast majority of his wages. Mansfield are only contributing a tiny fraction - he actually earns more in basic terms than his brother, Sean, who has made 15 Premier League appearances this season. The younger Longstaff continued to train with Newcastle’s squad during the first weekend in February, as Mansfield did not have a league fixture. Some sources praised the decision, believing it showed Longstaff’s willingness to put in extra work, while others questioned it, wondering what impression it gave to his new team-mates. Certainly, following his travails in Scotland, every game at this level will prove to be a learning experience for Longstaff. He arrives in Nottinghamshire as a marquee signing for Clough, although Mansfield’s recent run of 11 league games unbeaten means that competition for places will be fierce. The hope is that Longstaff will add physicality and depth to Mansfield’s midfield unit, while expectations on the other side of the deal are based around playing time. Mansfield’s style of play was also an attractive prospect as Longstaff made his debut as the anchor of a midfield diamond. His involvement in an attempt in the first half, progressing the play well through central midfield to send Mansfield on the attack, showed what he will add but the chance was wasted when he collected the return pass and opted to shoot, despite having plenty of options around him. His effort lacked power or direction and was easily collected by Rovers’ goalkeeper James Belshaw. A threatening delivery for Ollie Clarke to head goalward in the second half was saved by Belshaw before Longstaff made a crucial tackle to deny Rovers as they broke into the box late on and preserve a 0-0 draw. “I thought he did alright, it’s a completely different game for him coming here from Newcastle,” Mansfield manager Clough said. “He kept between the centre-halves and we’re just trying to encourage him and be positive that he’ll make something happen for us. ”I’m very pleased with his physical output certainly, he competed all the way through and even though he’d got booked in the 93rd minute he was still trying to put his foot in. “Very pleased with that but it’s going to be difficult for him; it’s much, much tougher sometimes playing lower down.“ Not exactly a ringing endorsement - but it is now up to Longstaff to maximise the opportunity. Playing a leading role in a successful promotion push would be a good start in rebuilding a career that, at one stage, looked like allowing him to live out his dream with his boyhood club. ------------------ How Mansfield Town landed Matty Longstaff via a bottle of champagne and chance double engagement chad.co.uk, By John Lomas, 16 Feb 2022 Mansfield Town CEO David Sharpe has revealed how a bottle of champagne and a chance double engagement resulted in the Stags being able to sign Newcastle United starlet Matty Longstaff on loan. The deal right at the end of the January transfer deadline day was a shock to most people, including Mansfield boss Nigel Clough. “Some things work in football quite strangely, but it's who you know,” explained Sharpe at last night's fans' forum at the One Call Stadium. “I got engaged over Christmas. I was lucky enough to be in Barbados and Matty Longstaff's agent, Kenneth (Shepherd), was there. https://www.chad.co.uk/sport/football/bottle-of-champagne-helped-land-longstaff-deal-for-stags-3572862 “I get on quite well with him anyway. When I was at Wigan we signed Harry McGuire on loan from Hull through him, which was another good one. “Matty's agent got engaged the same evening as me and Ellie did and I sent over a nice bottle of champagne - four or five weeks later we ended up with Matty Longstaff!” He added: “Newcastle were very fair with us. I won't go into detail but very fair. They just wanted to get him playing. “We dealt with Shola Ameobi there, their ex-striker. “I think they've obviously come into so much cash and signed so many players recently that they just needed to get players out playing which worked in our favour. “Matty was possibly moving somewhere else. But that didn't quite happen. “Signing him was quite a statement. But we didn't want to give the impression that Mansfield were splashing the cash which is what's happened in the past here. “We definitely aren't splashing the cash on that deal.” “It was one that came completely out of the blue,” agreed manager Clough. “We hadn't really planned for it. “Jamie Murphy came up almost at the last minute and then Matty Longstaff came out of absolutely nowhere. It was just one of those we were very fortunate with. “I think it's fair to say that we got him and Jamie Murphy when Harry Charsley left and Richard Nartey went back to Burnley, though he's still available to us, and we made money on those two deals. We're paying less now than we were before. “That tells you, as David says, we're not splashing the cash.” Clough continued: “Credit to Matty Longstaff. Our biggest fear when someone comes from the Premier League is that he's a 'big time Charlie' coming to 'little Mansfield'. “But he is a brilliant lad. The fact he wanted to come straight away speaks volumes for him as well. “He was straight in with the players and has no sort of arrogance about him. He has fitted straight in and I think he is enjoying it.” Stags fans can watch Part One of the fans’ forum on iFollow and it is expected to be available later today (Thursday). ------------------------ |
Latest | February 2022