Sean Longstaff – Local Hero

Like Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold, Sean Longstaff has shone for his boyhood club this season. The midfielder tells FFT all about his Newcastle revival under Eddie Howe, a £50m move to Manchester United that never was, and why he hasn't been herding sheep...

- By Matthew Ketchell

"CAN I SAY THIS?"

Sean Longstaff is speaking to FourFourTwo at Newcastle United's training centre, and has realised mid-conversation that he's applying the same honesty and commitment to this chat as he would to a match in the Premier League or Champions League. It's like he only knows one mode: zeal.

As the 26-year-old homegrown midfielder talks frankly about his first-team journey at St James' Park, via Rafa Benitez, Steve Bruce, Eddie Howe and a heavily-rumoured transfer to Manchester United, he briefly turns to the Newcastle press officer to check that he isn't overstepping the mark.

The journey hasn't always been easy-he previously suffered from mental health issues, as he candidly discusses - but it has taken the academy product to a point where he has delivered some of the finest form of his career this campaign, playing Champions League football for the first time and scoring at the Gallowgate End in a famous 4-1 win over Paris Saint-Germain.

Choosing his words carefully but eager to explain how he got here, Longstaff deftly divulges some of his current gaffer's secret powers, such as Howe's ability to predict the future and capacity to instil belief in human beings they previously thought impossible.

Longstaff isn't even halfway through his playing days, but there have already been enough twists and turns, highs and lows, fun and fallouts to fill a book. Six pages of a football magazine will have to do for now...

Your father, David, was the first man ever to receive 100 caps for Great Britain’s ice hockey team – was your introduction to sport on ice rather than grass?