Sandro OK, OK, OK?

Scott's been thinking about Sandro's most recent interview...

It’s October 29 and Newcastle are seeing out the last thirty seconds of a routine League Cup win against Tottenham. We have a corner and mere mortals are chasing the ball around a crowded penalty box like a contestant in the ‘Crystal Maze’ moneygrab.

Meanwhile, Sandro Tonali (after having flu the week before) has just produced one of the greatest halves of football I've ever seen from a Newcastle midfielder. Tonali stands motionless on the edge of the centre circle just taking it all in. He's inadvertently recreating the minute's silence we had an hour and a half earlier. He doesn't move until the final whistle goes.

He had just ran 50 yards to win a ball in the corner he had no right to win, in a time of match he had no right still to be on. The general consensus was he needed a breather but to me this statuesque opt out was Tonali’s epiphany moment. It had suddenly hit him.

He was the king looking judgementally down on everyone else from the throne, the judge looking down on the rest of the court as he sentenced. With great hair.

I'm no body language expert, but this was the football equivalent of what the chess grand master must feel like when they make the victorious move. They know it, his opponent knows it, but it's all so very classy and reserved. Very Sandro.

At that point, Newcastle and Tonali looked like the match made in heaven for a very long time to come, but his latest interview, which you can't say wasn't honest, has got me thinking back to that epiphany and maybe he was thinking something entirely different.

Is Tonali outgrowing United? Is he getting itchy feet? Or am I thinking far, far too much.

The thing is Newcastle United has had its fingers burned so much this year that they have been slapping Savlon (other burn and bite creams are available) on since July.

Whichever opinion you have on Isak’s infidelity, you can certainly say that the club's pants were pulled down. The amateurish summer was more Sunday League than Champions League and once that particular bottle of scent is opened, it's hard to get that smell out the building.

Has Tonali blown the starting whistle on a long and unbearable conscious uncoupling with his interview or is it an honest answer to a question that led him up the garden path like a postman on his last delivery of his shift?

The interesting naming of “Alex” as a reference point was poignant. It’s the first time I've heard any of our players mention him in a long time. The look on Bruno’s face at Leeds as the Isak is a c**t chant bellowed out didn’t even result in a namecheck afterwards. Tonali knew what he was saying.

Just like “Alex”, unless we buck our ideas up, the first elite club (I hate myself for saying that) that flutters its eyebrows, he’s jumping into bed with them. It's not that he's not warning you.

Tonali doesn't get interviewed much but when he does he always leaves something hanging. Who can forget the interview in the bowels of the San Siro when he basically came out and said he had made a mistake in a room full of Milanese and Newcastle journalists?

This is just an extension of that.

He isn't saying anything earth shattering, it's just we have been neutralised by players sticking to the official line from the media training classes they have been doing. The 2025 equivalent of Chris De Burgh and Steak and Chips that used to be in the match programme. Big Sandro, by contrast, gives very good copy when he's let off the leash.

Tonali owes us some loyalty, of course he does, after his ban, but as he explained in the interview he showed it by immediately signing a contract after his ban was put in place. He seems particularly miffed that this has been leaked to the press now. I agree with him, this is a very strange thing to do.

For a player who wants and can be at the very top table, Newcastle as it stands are not good enough to satisfy that hunger. Nothing wrong with admitting that. We aren't.

For Ross Wilson, supposedly going through ‘operations’ (yuck) with a ‘fine tooth comb’, this now leaps to the top of his burgeoning in-tray. The club's most valuable and best player has said he doesn't want to stay long term. Back to that chess analogue again. Your move Ross

The ironic thing is, Tonali’s performances have dipped around that interview and at West Ham and Brentford, he was arguably one of our worst performers.

Tonali’s situation now reminds me of the Bruno Guimarães talk around that feted release clause. Bruno was every inch one of the very best around, but his crown has slipped to merely being a very good player for NUFC rather than a player who Real Madrid would sell their granny for.

If Tonali continues at the rate of knots he has been in the last 18 months and Newcastle as a club continue at theirs, the question will be immaterial anyway. We won't be able to keep hold of him, but we will surely have a succession plan in place that doesn't play us for fools. It's not too much to ask, really.

In the interview, Tonali said “I don't think of any other team” and “I’m happy here” but that he didn't want to stay forever. While it's hardly the smoking gun some are making out it is, it does look like a proverbial kick up the arse for a club drifting on and off the pitch. You sign top level players and you fail to reach their expectations. That's the result.

You didn't get this problem with Jeff Hendrick or Fumaca did you?

Scott Robson

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