Newcastle United captain Jamaal Lascelles has moved to dispel rumours of a training ground bust up between him and manager Rafael Benitez.
The Mail reported on Sunday that Benitez had dropped the Magpies skipper from his starting eleven after a training ground argument over the team’s tactics for their 2-1 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday.
However, Lascelles tweeted from his personal Twitter account that it was merely a slight ankle injury that forced him to miss the game at St James’s Park.
https://twitter.com/Lascelles16/status/1033805172563169281
Benitez surprised many people by switching to a five man defence for the encounter with Maurizio Sarri’s side, with new signings Fabian Schar and Federico Fernandez partnering Ciaran Clark in the centre of defence.
OPINION
It’s easy to believe a report like the Mail’s when a key player Lascelles is dropped from the match day squad for such an important game, but both Rafael Benitez and the player himself have now come out to say that it was solely the defender’s injury that kept him out of the fixture. Whether that’s true or not is unknown at this time, but you have to take what both men say at face value. Benitez has always had a good relationship with his Newcastle players, and is known as a terrific tactician. It’s hard to believe that he would drop his captain and best defender just because the 24-year-old dared to question him. Perhaps that was something that contributed to Benitez’s decision to drop Lascelles, but surely the primary factor was the player’s injury. The Englishman is too good a player for the former Liverpool boss to leave him out because of an off the field issue.
