Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is relishing the dilemma of getting to disappoint gamers as he makes an attempt to barter a path via a season which might see his squad stretched to its limits.
The 45-year-old left summer time signings Harvey Barnes and Tino Livramento, in addition to final season’s prime scorer Callum Wilson, sitting on the bench for Saturday’s Premier League opener, however noticed Wilson and Barnes come on and rating in a 5-1 demolition of Aston Villa.
Howe admitted within the run-up to the sport that he had “five or six” tough choices to make within the mild of a recent £125million spending spree, Anthony Gordon’s pre-season type and the emergence of homegrown midfielder Elliot Anderson, however that could be a downside he welcomes with a Champions League marketing campaign looming.
He mentioned: “They’re dilemmas that are needed because we’re going to need the strongest squad possible, and the players who missed out today will play loads of games this season.
“That’s just a fact because we’re in so many different competitions, we’re going to be stretched and we’ll also be needing their quality as well.
“It’s going to be nice to be able to make those decisions. We need the strongest bench we can get this year with the amount of games we’re going to have, the amount of competitions we’re in.
“It was certainly a difficult day yesterday to name the team. They weren’t easy decisions for me to make – decisions I had to make, of course, being in my position – and then you just hope the team performs and you get the benefit of that squad.”
One of these choices noticed Howe hand a debut to £52m former AC Milan midfielder Sandro Tonali, and it paid off handsomely because the 23-year-old not solely opened the scoring inside six minutes, however produced a commanding show on his first look in England’s prime flight.
Villa’s file signing Moussa Diaby cancelled out the Italian’s early strike briefly order, however his response was to play a pivotal function as Newcastle overwhelmed the guests, Alexander Isak serving to himself to a double both facet of the unlucky Tyrone Mings’ departure on a stretcher earlier than substitutes Wilson and Barnes added their names to the scoresheet late on.
Howe was understandably delighted, however equally assured there may be extra to come back.
He mentioned: “We didn’t defend perfectly, so there’s stuff for us to improve – but it was a weird situation. I thought they (Villa) played well, but we could have scored more goals.”
Opposite quantity Unai Emery headed again to the midlands hoping the information on Mings isn’t as unhealthy as that which noticed midfielder Emiliano Buendia dominated out for an prolonged interval with a knee damage final week, however taking consolation from Diaby’s spectacular debut on Tyneside.
Emery mentioned: “We haven’t had all bad news and one of the good things was to watch Moussa playing feeling good and adapting to the position we’re trying to get with him. He was good, he scored and he played well.
“We had some good moments in the 90 minutes, but there a lot of things we had to do to control the match that we didn’t do within our system.”