Last night Eddie Howe’s Newcastle side battled hard and came away with a deserved 1-0 victory over Manchester City at St James’ Park. Alexander Isak scored the goal in a team that had 10 changes from Sunday’s 8-0 drubbing of Sheffield United.  

This result over Manchester City represents four years since Newcastle’s last victory over the current European Champions and thus got me thinking where are the players that played on that cold January night where goals from Salamon Rondon and an 87^th minute penalty from Matt Ritchie secured Newcastle victory. 

So, the Newcastle lineup that day was Dubravka; Yedlin Schar Lascelles Lejeune Ritchie; Perez Hayden Longstaff Atsu; Rondon; with Kenedy, Manquillo and Clark. Six of them players are still registered in the Newcastle first team (Dubravka, Schar, Lascelles, Ritchie, Longstaff and Manquillo) so they will not be spoken about in this article but the other eight have had mixed fortunes since that victory in 2019.  

DeAndre Yedlin is currently piling his trade over in the MLS playing for Inter Miami alongside Lionel Messi, in January 2019 who would’ve thought that would be something occurring four years later, certainly not me! Yedlin left Newcastle in 2021 after five years with the club to join Turkish side Galatasaray with whom he stayed for a year, making 27 appearances and scoring one goal, before departing the club to move back to his home nation with Inter Miami where he remains to this day. 

Florian Lejeune currently piles his trade for Rayo Vallecano, his second Spanish side since leaving Tyneside in 2021. Lejeune first joined Deportivo Alaves suffering relegation with the side before being picked up first on loan then on a permanent with Rayo Vallecano. Lejeune made 64 appearances for Alaves before departing for Vallecano with whom he added a further 33 appearances to his record.  

Ayoze Perez has had a whirlwind of a few years firstly departing for £30 million to Leicester in the summer of 2019 and winning an FA Cup before falling out of favour at The King Power and departing to Real Betis on an initial loan in January 2023 before that loan was made permanent at the end of Perez’s Leicester contract this summer. The Spanish forward made 80 appearances for Leicester scoring 12 goals. 

Isaac Hayden is currently still contracted to Newcastle but is currently on loan at Standard Liege with the option to make the move permanent at the end of the season. He has also spent time on loan at Norwich, but injuries have troubled what was once a promising career under Rafa Benitez. He played just 14 games for Norwich in his loan spell and will be hoping to do better at his new club in Belgium. 

Christian Atsu departed Newcastle in 2021 to Saudi Arabia but only made eight appearances before departing to Turkey where unfortunately Christian Atsu passed away tragically during the 2023 Earthquakes. He was just 31 years old.  

The scorer of the first goal Salomon Rondon has gone onto have an interesting career since January 2019. Awarded player of the season that season the Venezuelan joined Rafa Benitez in China the next season making the move to Dalian where he played 27 games scoring 14 times before returning to England with Everton where just one goal in 27 caps was deemed not good enough and he was shipped back to South America with Argentine side River Plate where he currently piles his trade.  

The three subs that day have also had differing fortunes, Kenedy had a poor second season on Tyneside and had loans in both Brazil and Spain before Chelsea finally shipped him off on a permanent basis to Valladolid for an undisclosed fee where he’s played just eleven times in over a year.  

Ciaran Clark was a Newcastle defensive mainstay under both Benitez and Bruce before a red card against Norwich early into Eddie Howe’s reign at Newcastle ended his career on Tyneside prematurely. He departed on loan to Sheffield United last season before being released by Newcastle this summer. He is currently a free agent.   

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