“Can I swear?,” inquires Sean Longstaff. The Newcastle midfielder has turned the clock back to 2020 and is searching for the right word to emphasise just how badly his career was unravelling at the time. “In training I was a bit of a tit,” he eventually explains. “I wasn’t nice to be around. I was miserable.”
Today Longstaff is a mainstay of Eddie Howe’s midfield, eagerly looking forward to Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Manchester United at Wembley. Two and a half years ago, though, a difficult relationship with Newcastle’s former manager Steve Bruce and a slow recovery from an ACL tear had clouded everything.
