Sue Smith heaped praise on Newcastle United midfielders Sean and Matty Longstaff following their display in the 1-0 win against Manchester United.
The Sky Sports pundit shared what a great story it was to see the two brothers play together in the middle of the park for the Magpies against the Red Devils on Sunday.
Smith added that she thought both Matty and Sean were outstanding and pointed out that Matty wasn’t just good because he scored, but that she was impressed by his overall performance.
“The two Longstaff brothers in the middle…absolutely..it’s a great story,” said Smith on Football Centre (Sky Sports News, 10:27am, Monday, October 7th).
“What a performance, not just his goal, but his overall performance…I thought he was outstanding, but both of them were.”
OPINION
Is anyone going to disagree with Smith’s remarks? Surely not, as the Longstaffs stole the show for all the right reasons. For example, it’s hard to deny what a perfect Premier League debut Matty had. The 19-year-old not only showed great composure to fire the ball home in the 72nd minute, but he showed no signs that he was out of his depth despite it being his first outing in England’s top-flight. Matty was unlucky to not get a brace, as his other shot during the game was only denied by the crossbar, and he proved to be an attacking force as he made one key pass as well as five accurate long balls forward to help his side push forward (Source: WhoScored). As for Sean, he submitted a performance that was good because he was cool, calm and able to dictate the tempo of the game through his passes. Only two Newcastle players touched the ball more than Sean, he touched it 50 times, and he made an impressive four key passes while maintaining a fantastic pass completion rate of 90.4% (Source: WhoScored). So hopefully the pair’s performances weren’t a one-off, and Steve Bruce will be able to count on them to deliver the goods in the coming weeks.
