SHELVEY IS THE REAL DEAL …NOW FOR ENGLAND?
As tHe rest of the newcastle bench went wild, as Jonjo shelvey ran to the away end to celebrate, rafa Benitez paused, turned around, and made a note.
this win against Leicester nearly confirmed newcastle would be playing Premier League football next season. Yet Benitez, serenaded throughout, kept calm on the touchline.
Anything but staying in the top flight would have been unacceptable to this Champions League winner.
Along the road to safety still being travelled, the 57-yearold has improved imperfect players. take shelvey, for example. His strike was so composed. Fed on the edge of the area, he exuded the poise of his manager. Pause. Drop the shoulder. take Harry Maguire and Wes Morgan out of the game. Goal.
shelvey, who frightened Leicester by the way he dictated the game, should be a contender for a place on the plane to russia for the World Cup. His manager agrees: ‘It’s good for him because now everybody is talking about he can go with the national team.
‘Jonjo is a good player but if he has good players around him like with england, he can be even better.’
the last of shelvey’s six england caps came in 2015. then again, so did his last Premier League goal.
Captain Jamaal Lascelles, whose side doubled their lead through Ayoze Perez before a late reply from Jamie Vardy, knows he can trust shelvey to have a telling impact: ‘I thought it might take us to show charac- ter and step up to take the game by two hands and Jonjo led the way in that sense with his goal.’
the midfielder has changed under Benitez. He was notorious for combining his talent with moments of madness. He was shown a red card in the first week of the season. But, quietly, things have improved. the 26-year-old has not been booked in the league since December.
Benitez said of shelvey: ‘the main thing is he has the talent and he has the quality. He just has to settle down a little bit and then he can use his quality in the game to dictate the tempo. so you try to repeat and repeat and it takes some time with this team because it is a young team.’
Gems like shelvey aside, newcastle have a team of rough diamonds. there should be fears at st James’ Park of what might happen if Benitez — rightly — decides to walk away, despite his affinity with the fans.
the former Liverpool boss had to rely on loan signings in January. that is not enough. this is a manager who should be competing for european places.
Benitez has already almost pulled this team up with Leicester, who were champions in the year he joined, while newcastle went down. ‘that shows how hard this group have worked and how they have progressed. Leicester are still a good team. But we’re winning so we’re learning and there’s good commitment from the players,’ he said.
‘to have good players around is really important, especially with young players. they have talent but they can improve. Little by little they are listening, learning, so it’s much better for you as a coach to see how they progress.’ He needs assurances. It took two windows to push through a loan for Chelsea’s Kenedy; he needs the budget to keep him for more than a short campaign.
What will the newcastle hierarchy get in return? Improvement. organisation. And, most importantly, hope. ‘I am a Pe teacher and so when your pupils, your students are learning and we are getting better . . . We were suffering, so we needed to learn quickly,’ he said.
‘every game you can see something that we can still improve but I have to be really pleased with the way they approach the game and training sessions.’
His players know what he has done for them. Lascelles, skipper at 24, says he has been helped in his leadership role: ‘the boys, the fans and the manager have made it really easy for me. When the manager shows us so much trust, it feels as though there’s not much we can do wrong.’
even so, the Pe teacher has lessons for his players. Whatever his note on shelvey’s goal said, Benitez’s classes are working. LEICESTER CITY (4-2-3-1): Schmeichel 6; Simpson 6 (Okazaki 56min, 5), Morgan 5, Maguire 5, Chilwell 6; Iborra 5 (Choudhury 41, 6), Silva 6; Mahrez 6, Diabate 6 (Gray 76), Albrighton 6; Vardy 7. Subs not used: Iheanacho, Dragovic, Jakupovic, Fuchs. Scorer: Vardy 83. Booked: Maguire. Manager: Claude Puel 6. NEWCASTLE UNITED (4-2-3-1): Dubravka 6; Yedlin 6, Lascelles 7, Lejeune 7, Dummett 7; Shelvey 7.5, Diame 7 (Hayden 80); Ritchie 7, PEREZ 8, Kenedy 7 (Atsu 62, 6); Gayle 6 (Joselu 69, 6). Subs not used: Clark, Manquillo, Merino, Darlow. Scorers: Shelvey 18, Perez 75. Booked: Lascelles, Gayle, Ritchie. Manager: Rafa Benitez 8. Referee: Stuart Attwell 7. Attendance: 32,066.