While Chelsea’s press conference was an early bird Thursday effort this week, our opposition are in the standard Friday slot.
Eddie Howe has just been speaking to the media at Newcastle’s training ground, where there was quite a lot of interesting Chelsea chatter – and not just about the game coming up on Monday night.
One subject that links the two clubs and is regularly raised is Lewis Hall. The youngster is on loan from Chelsea with an option for Newcastle to buy him outright. But he’s not played much, and every few months there’s a wave of hopeful rumours that he might end up coming back to Chelsea after all.
Howe did his best to quash that today with these quotes:
“I’m preparing for Lewis to be at #NUFC for many years. He was always brought in as a long-term not short-term signing… I don’t think [the obligation clause] has quite happened yet but hopefully it will very soon.”
Hall will still have to make a few appearances to make the deal permanent, but it doesn’t sound like Howe is too concerned about that. There’s plenty of season left.
The brutal irony is that with so many left backs out for Chelsea, if he was still in our squad he would definitely be starting on Monday.
