Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez has revealed what he told Jonjo Shelvey when the midfielder asked to play for the under-23s on Friday night.
The England international struck in stoppage time to give the Magpies’ second string a late victory over Fulham, and Benitez has revealed the discussion he had with the player regarding his under-23s outing.
“It is very clear – I said it’s down to match fitness, and he has to play matches,” he told The Chronicle. “He knows that he will not be involved this weekend and we were talking about that. He said he wanted to have 45 minutes to 60 minutes under his belt.
“I think it’s fine. For me it is a very positive movement on his part. Jonjo Shelvey was asking me to play for the Under-23s because he knows he has to play games. So he played with them last night.”
OPINION
This is a really interesting situation but it appears to have been handled well by everyone involved. Shelvey showed tremendous self-awareness to come to Benitez and request to play for the U23s, while the manager proved that he was open-minded enough to accept what his player was saying and acquiesce to his demands. It worked out well, too, because Shelvey got some minutes under his belt and scored the winning goal. It’s all about fitness for Shelvey because we all know he’s not a reserve team player. He is a top quality footballer and he deserves to be playing regular football. Unfortunately injuries have prevented him from doing that recently, and Sean Longstaff and Isaac Hayden have nailed down their first team spots in his absence. However, this was a good move from him and hopefully he’ll be back in the first team fold and involved regularly soon.