OPINION
Newcastle United midfielder Mohamed Diame is at a crossroads in his Magpies career, and the emergence of youngster Sean Longstaff should spell the end for him on Tyneside.
The Chronicle has reported that the Senegal star is a few games away from triggering an automatic one year extension to his contract, but that the player wants a fresh two year deal.
However, with the way that Isaac Hayden and Longstaff are playing in central midfield at the moment, it’s very possible that Diame won’t get the games to earn him an extension. It certainly looks that way at the moment, with the veteran struggling for game time in recent weeks.
He’s not a bad player, Diame, but he’s hardly a world beater. His deficiencies have been highlighted more recently by how well Hayden and Longstaff have played.
It seemed like Diame, on a reported £45,000-per-week [Source: Spotrac], was doing alright earlier in the season, but when you see Hayden and Longstaff doing their jobs far better than he was it really hammers home the mediocre aspect of his game.
Longstaff is the future of the Magpies midfield, there’s no doubt about that. At 21 years of age he is going to be around for some time, and you don’t want to do anything to stunt his development.
With Hayden’s future uncertain and Diame’s likewise, that would leave Rafael Benitez with only Ki Sung-yueng, Jonjo Shelvey and Longstaff to potentially start next season.
However, it would be smart for the club to bring some fresh blood into the middle of the park, meaning that it’s not the worst idea to allow both Diame and Hayden out the door in the summer.
The former, in particular, needs to be moved on. His time is up at St James’ Park, and the remarkable emergence of Longstaff is the cause of that. Diame must go at the end of the season in order to allow the youngster’s progress to continue uninterrupted.
