Newcastle United star Sean Longstaff’s career has had way more ups and downs than that of a typical 25-year-old professional footballer.
In 2019 he broke into Newcastle’s first-team under Rafa Benitez and very quickly established himself as a capable Premier League midfielder. He was influencing games, starting to score goals, and attracting attention from the England manager.
When Newcastle United travelled to West Ham in March 2019 he went head-to-head with another young, prospective England midfielder: Declan Rice. Gareth Southgate’s Assistant Manager, Steve Holland, was in the stands to observe the pair ahead of an imminent England squad announcement. Both players were in contention for their first senior international call-up.
“There was a little bit made of it,” admits Longstaff, “but we never saw it that way. We’re slightly different players in terms of positions, so it was more the media trying to build it up.”
The game panned out very differently for both players. Longstaff sustained a serious knee injury that ruled him out for six months. Rice scored, West Ham won 2-0 and he received his first England call-up a week later.
“I got home that night and just thought, ‘Ugh’ – everything’s going well, then you feel like the world has ended. It’s funny: from that stage, everything Declan did went whoosh – everyone at West Ham loved him – then when I came back, the club were struggling.”
Longstaff tells FourFourTwo that he and Rice speak to each other via Instagram and WhatsApp regularly to this day and there is a lot of mutual respect between the two.
“Dec’s a really nice lad, so when someone so nice does so well, you feel nothing but happiness for them. I’m on my own journey now, but his first campaign in the Champions League has been in the same season as mine and he’s at a great team like Arsenal while I’m at a top club in Newcastle. Hopefully we’ll both keep on doing well.”
By the time Longstaff had recovered from his knee injury, Newcastle United felt vastly different to the team he had represented in March 2019. Rafa Benitez had exited and was replaced by Steve Bruce who had just endured a lackluster season with Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.
“I’ll be the first to say that as soon as I saw Rafa go, I thought, ‘Oh, he’s just given me a chance – he knew me’. Then the new boss comes in and straight away you get a feel for people, and I could sort of tell that we were going to butt heads.”
It was the start of a downward spiral for the young midfielder who admits he felt a responsibility to rush back from his injury to help the team. They struggled, continued to play defensively and the mood among players and supporters declined.
Speaking to Martin Hardy in The Times in 2022, Longstaff pinpointed the moment things reached a head in October 2020. “We’d had breakfast in Tynemouth. I could feel myself welling up at the table. We went upstairs at mine and he looked at me and kept looking at me and he didn’t really say anything and then he wasn’t looking at me like a dad who was going to talk about football, or take the piss, he was looking at me like a dad who wanted to know what was wrong. When he did that, I was like — woosh — I remember breaking down in front of him bursting into tears. I was in a pretty bad way.”
Now, three-and-a-half years later and speaking to FourFourTwo, the North Shields-born midfielder believes that period has made him a stronger individual.
“Looking back, it probably helped to make me mentally tougher in dealing with setbacks, whatever life throws at you. You think it’s always going to be rosy, but it’s not like that. It’s great now because I’m out the other side of it, playing every week and with a coach who really trusts me.
“Beforehand, I remember walking in, training every day, and going home, and it was just a spiral of negativity. Matty Ritchie was massive for me, as he put me in contact with a professional. I remember the first phone call; you think, ‘Is this really going to help?’ Two and a half years later, you’ve seen how far I’ve come.”
Longstaff still speaks to this person in the morning on the way into training, and often after training too. He’s in a place now where he doesn’t feel the need to speak to them every day but knows that the help is there.
“It’s like a safety blanket, knowing that I’ve spoken to them. It helps, so why would I change?”
If ever there was a season that epitomises Sean Longstaff’s career, it has been the 2023/24 campaign. There’s been huge highs: scoring at the Gallowgate End in a 4-1 Champions League demolition of PSG and big lows: the injury crisis that has wrecked Newcastle’s season and forced Longstaff to play through injuries and with injections.
Longstaff admits his first season playing in Europe has been an eye opener for him and many of his team-mates. “At the start, we played Milan, then Sheffield United after that. It was like, ‘Ah, it’s sound, this, I don’t feel too bad’. It’s when you have to do it again the next week, then play in the League Cup, then a few lads get injured and people start saying, ‘Oh, they look tired’, then some players probably think, ‘Oh, I am tired’ – they hear this stuff and it probably makes them feel a bit worse.
“It makes you have even more respect for the top teams; the fact they do it every year and they’re still outstanding. We’ve got the experience now: we know what it’s going to be like. Now we want to be back in those situations to show that we can do it better next time. Hopefully it’s better injury-wise and we can rotate a tad more, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Every player’s the same: they’d rather be playing matches than training. It’s been difficult, but a great learning curve, and hopefully one we can use in the future.”
Read our full interview with Sean Longstaff in the latest issue of FourFourTwo. Order here with free delivery
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