Opinion

After the good, solid win against Bilbao on Wednesday night. I must admit that aside from getting a good three points and putting us in a great position in the Champions League table, I saw the return of Lewis Hall (as well as the fit again Kieran Trippier) as massive plus points.

I’m a big advocate of Eddie Howe playing with a Newcastle United back five as it can harmonise defence and attack in a way that some other formations simply don’t.

We’ve certainly seen the end of 4-4-2 in football as it’s hardly ever used, due to being deemed too open a formation to risk.

One man’s 5-3-2 is another man’s 3-5-2, or even 5-3-1-1, whilst depending on the personnel playing it can also be some other person’s 4-3-3.

Now Eddie Howe has more routinely gone with the latter and we haven’t done too badly with it. Yes, there have been some aberrations like last weekend’s defeat down at West Ham, where I could repeatedly look at the side that finished that game and a week later STILL not know what formation we were playing.

Eddie has on occasion donned a Newcastle United back...