At the time of writing Eddie Howe‘s Newcastle side to face Fiorentina has just been announced and amongst the starters are Sven Botman, Kieran Trippier, Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak. It’s a pretty strong team, no question about that but with Martin Dubravka in goal, Alex Murphy, Matt Targett, Lewis Miley and Elliot Anderson all in the side, it’s arguably not the strongest team Howe could have chosen.
It’s evident then, that Howe is splitting his squad over the two games, both sides featuring a mix of first-team players and reserves, which is fine for a pre-season friendly, arguably it’s what they’re all about.
The problem is, in seven days time Newcastle are back at St James’ Park facing off against Aston Villa in the first Premier League game of the season and it’s very likely that Howe’s starting XI for that game will not have played together as a team all pre-season.
Of course they train with each other every day and they’re all professional enough that they should be able to play together regardless, but it just seems odd that Howe wouldn’t use at least one friendly to test out a potential starting XI so close to the league opener.
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