Joelinton was considered a huge disappointment after scoring just two goals in his first Premier League season, but under Eddie Howe he’s undergone an astonishing transformation.
Standing out as a brilliant player in the Premier League is hard enough; reinventing yourself as such after being ridiculed, even labelled by some as the competition’s worst signing ever, is practically unheard of.
However, most would agree that’s a pretty accurate and succinct appraisal of Joelinton’s Newcastle United career. Once the butt of all jokes, now the Brazilian embodies the spirit and ferocity that often sets Eddie Howe’s team apart, making him one of the first names in the starting XI.
Of course, this didn’t just happen, nor is it a recent revelation. But after playing a vital role in 10-man Newcastle’s 1-0 win over Southampton on the opening day of the 2024-25 season, it feels like an opportune moment to put the spotlight on Joelinton and his reinvention.
That is the most suitable description of his situation: reinvention. Signed for £40 million from Hoffenheim, Joelinton was – famously – brought in as a striker. Only, his performances in such a role saw him pilloried, so out of his depth as he was.
After a dismal first season, other clubs might’ve looked to offload him while they could. But during the Mike Ashley era, Newcastle were counting every penny. Joelinton had to endure and fans were stuck with just another abject disappointment of a centre-forward, the latest in a pretty long line of such players. He was very much up there with the likes of Emmanuele Riviere, Joselu, Luuk de Jong, Islam Slimani and Stephane Guivarc’h, if not in a league of his own.
Over the course of 2019-20, Joelinton averaged only 1.67 shots per 90 minutes, the third fewest of any recognised striker in the league (minimum 900 minutes played). He also ranked third-last for shots on target (0.5) per 90.
He was bottom of the whole pile for non-penalty expected goals (xG), with his shots worth just 0.18 non-pen xG per 90 – and even then, he still significantly underperformed over the season, managing just two goals from 5.47 xG.
Granted, when it comes to chances for strikers, you do also have to consider the potential failings of those supplying the service, but there’s no getting away from the fact Joelinton wasted some glorious opportunities.
Joelinton’s second season at the club wasn’t significantly better, but he was at least under less pressure. Firstly, 40% of his minutes were played out on the flanks where his ball carrying, work rate and running were a little more appreciated. That was closely linked to the arrival of Callum Wilson.
The latter’s numerous injuries that season meant Joelinton still carried some responsibility in front of goal, but Wilson was pretty reliable when fit, ending the season with a solid return of 12 goals in 26 games. Furthermore, Joelinton’s own return did improve to four goals despite playing roughly 700 fewer minutes.
But then, everything changed in 2021-22. Steve Bruce was eventually dismissed in late October after months of speculation, and Eddie Howe took over early the next month. It would prove to be the making of Joelinton.
“I remember seeing him in our first training session and thinking, ‘Wow, what a player he is’,” Howe told The Athletic of Joelinton in September 2022. “I didn’t know too much about what had happened to him here, but that initial impression was of an outstanding talent who also seemed like a really good guy.”
It took a couple of weeks and was somewhat born out of necessity, but Joelinton was shifted back into midfield for the first time against Norwich City on 30 November 2021. Ciaran Clark received a straight red card early on and Howe’s response was to play the Brazilian deeper, deploying him as an eight.
He wanted the ball and played with his head up, mostly using it well, and he wasn’t easy to knock over. But he also put in a real shift defensively, routinely helping out inside or just outside his own area, fighting tirelessly while also throwing himself into a few tackles. He may not have looked the most refined central midfielder we’ve seen in the Premier League, but he was brilliant in his own way. In that match, he blazed a trail for himself and he’s not looked back.
It was about a month later that Joelinton began to attract attention from a slightly wider audience. A man-of-the-match performance in a 1-1 draw with Manchester United in late December had some wondering how this was the same player who’d been so underwhelming as a striker for the best part of two years.
In a post-match interview with Sky Sports after that game, Sean Longstaff provided a passionate, almost moving defence of his colleague, who was stood alongside him waiting to collect his award.
“We know how good Joelinton is and the disrespect he gets is a disgrace,” Longstaff said. “Every day in training he’s the best player, and if you get him on your team in training you’re buzzing because you’ll always win. He’s shown since the manager came in what he’s been like in training; everyone at the club rates him so highly. The noise from outside is so disrespectful and if you watch him enough you see how good he is. I’m so happy for him and proud of him.”
Howe acknowledged earlier this year that altering Joelinton’s role wasn’t by design, he merely “stumbled upon it” during that draw with Norwich. Nevertheless, he also pointed out that his defensive attributes had always been highly regarded as a forward before he joined Newcastle, having played in an entirely different, and far higher-intensity system for the demanding Julian Nagelsmann at Hoffenheim than under Bruce on Tyneside.
His former Hoffenheim teammate Lukas Rupp also alluded to that key difference in system when suggesting a major reason for Joelinton’s early struggles was that Newcastle “play a 5-4-1, park the bus in front of their own goal, and Joelinton has to struggle pretty much on his own in the front”. In Germany, he’d been used as something of a nine-10 hybrid.
In that sense, Joelinton was on a hiding to nothing when expected to play the archetypal lone-striker role. After all, in Joelinton’s own words, he never had the mentality to be the single-minded centre-forward he was expected to be.
“Today I can show more of who I am than before,” he told The Guardian in 2023. “When you’re a striker, you’re there to score goals. The media and the fans demand goals from you. I’ve never been that hungry man for goals. Of course, I always want to score, but if I see a teammate in a better position, I’m going to make the pass. You see the greatest strikers in the world. They don’t pass the ball; they want everything for themselves. They always want to score, and I’ve never had that desire.”
Perhaps more egotistical forwards would’ve baulked at the thought of being moved from their position (even if, as we’ve established, it wasn’t really his position), but Joelinton saw it as an opportunity.
Across his time playing as a midfielder, Joelinton has noticeably improved in relation to getting on the ball and distributing it. Even in those early days, he couldn’t be accused of being shy, but over time he’s developed a greater understanding of where he ought to be to receive the ball.
For instance, in 2021-22, he averaged 31.1 passes every 90 minutes, whereas last season that was up to 43.3. It’s a similar story in the opposition’s half, going from 19.7 passes per 90 to 26.3.
But it’s his ability to be influential across the pitch that’s made him stand out as such an effective box-to-box midfielder. While he’s unlikely to dictate the flow of the game like Bruno Guimarães next to him, he’s a fighter and better technically than perhaps many realised.
Last season, he was the only Premier League midfielder (minimum 900 minutes played) to record as many as 1.6 open-play chances created and 2.7 tackle attempts per 90 minutes, and one of only 17 players in the whole division to average at least 15 ground duels per 90.
The combination of his work rate on and off the ball was also reflected by the fact he started 1.1 open-play sequences that led to a shot per 90, putting him ninth among central midfielders; that speaks to how effective he is at recovering possession and subsequently using the ball smartly.
But those smart decisions on the ball don’t just come down to offloading possession. One element of Joelinton’s game that often stood out during those dark early days was his drive when carrying the ball, and from midfield he’s able to more effectively use that strength without negatively impacting the wider team’s setup.
Whereas before, getting on the ball in such a manner may have been detrimental to the team because the expectation was that he should be looking to receive the ball in the most dangerous areas, which – as his comments to The Guardian last year highlighted – seemingly wasn’t his natural priority.
But Joelinton’s carrying ability from midfield is a real weapon for Newcastle, and his average carry distance of 11.6 metres last season was the fifth longest among central and defensive midfielders (min. 900 mins).
Of course, the problem was Newcastle didn’t have him – and several other key players – available for the whole season in 2023-24. Due to injury, Joelinton only managed five appearances in the league after the turn of the year, and Howe’s side missed his all-action style dearly.
That was on display in last weekend’s backs-to-the-wall 1-0 win over Saints, though, with the Magpies playing over an hour a man light after Fabian Schär’s sending off for his altercation with Ben Brereton Díaz.
Joelinton contested (15) and won (eight) the second-most ground duels, contested (five) and won (four) the most aerial duels, had the third-most possession regains (three) and fouls won (three), had two of Newcastle’s three shots and scored the decisive goal, displaying the kind of composure simply not seen from him when back finding the net was his primary objective.
On BBC’s Match of the Day, club legend Alan Shearer described him as a “tower of strength” and “giant of a midfielder.” The symbolism of such comments from an icon of Shearer’s standing arguably provides the most apt summary of Joelinton’s unlikely story of reinvention.
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