OPINION
Newcastle United must take the wild card route to solve their issue regarding their lack of top-quality cover for the position of left-back by signing Patrice Evra.
The Magpies really needed to sign adequate cover for first-choice left-back Paul Dummett in the summer but for whatever reason a player of that nature didn’t arrive.
When Dummett is injured, which he has been recently, Rafa Benitez has been forced to use Javier Manquillo who despite his best efforts isn’t cut out to deliver the goods in the Premier League.
This causes the Spanish manager to have a clear issue with his team as it means he has to constantly fret about Dummett being available.
So it’s no surprise that Benitez has already started working on his January transfer targets, according to a report by The Chronicle, and pinpointed the position of left-back as one of the areas he needs to strengthen in the market.
Given that Mike Ashley shows no signs of loosen the purse strings at the club anytime soon then Benitez has to find ways not to spend a lot money to find a player to fix his left-back issue.
Enter Evra who at the age of 37-years-old could still do a job for the Magpies especially when being asked just to provide cover for Dummett, which he would be.
Football.London reported on Sunday that the experienced full-back was training with West Ham, who won’t be offering him a contract, in order to get his fitness up in order to find a club to snap him up.
Given that he has been without a side since leaving the Hammers in the summer then he will no doubt jump at the chance to join a club like the Magpies and probably accept lower than expected wages to get a deal.
Evra, who has won the Premier League fives times as well as the Champions League is his career, would bring vital top-flight experience to the club and have Benitez no longer on the brink of wrapping Dummett in cotton wool.
The only issue is the highly-decorated left-back did struggle in his five league outings for the Hammers last season, so perhaps that should be a red flag.
However find a player who didn’t struggle as a defender at the London Stadium last season as they had the leakiest defence and that didn’t exactly help Evra excel being back in the Premier League.
Therefore this all means that the Magpies must solve their left-back conundrum by snapping up Evra.