Joelinton admits he was 'scared' by what Eddie Howe asked him to do at Newcastle United

The Magpies were down to 10 men following Ciaran Clark’s early sending off and recently appointed head coach Eddie Howe made the bold decision to drop Joelinton back into a midfield position.

The Brazilian flourished and rarely looked back for the remainder of the campaign as he went on to be named as the club’s Player of the Season.

"It was against Norwich at home, we'd started the game really well,” Joelinton told Cast FC. “Then in the ninth minute, our defender got sent off, and Eddie put me back in the middle.

"And he asked me to close down the middle there, the normal tactical part.

"I did very well, I played very well, I defended well, I attacked, I did everything the position asked of me, and because I was a player short, I was able to do well. But he already saw something in me about not being the number nine.

"The way I'd been playing for the last two years, he saw that I could give something more to the team by playing in other positions.

"And if you looked back to when he arrived, I never played in a number nine [position], I've played as a second striker, I've played on the wing, I've played as a 10. And then I started playing as an eight and ended up playing as an eight.”

When he was asked to play midfield for Newcastle, Joelinton duly and successfully obliged. But in the back of his mind was the bad memory of the previous time he played in that position.

During his spell at Rapid Vienna, the Brazilian played in a midfield role in a derby match against Austria Vienna – he didn’t finish the match.

“I'd already played one game in Austria as a number eight, and I ended up getting sent off,” he added.

“We lost a derby, so I was a bit scared but [Howe] gave me total confidence. I was also feeling good, confident, I'd been doing a job that was helping me.

"I was physically fit, with a good headset. So things happened at the right time.”