Liam Scales of Celtic tackles Anthony Elanga of Newcastle United
Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe wants to see some patience with Anthony Elanga with the winger still getting into the swing of things in pre-season.
The £55million man’s debut was a low key affair but was merely part of an overall disappointment at Parkhead.
Elanga’s introduction came when the damage was already done at 2-0 down but he could do very little to prevent it turning into a hammering.
But Howe, who jets off with his players to the Far East tomorrow, said of Elanga: “He was really good and I thought he showed his qualities in the game.
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“He caught the eye and you could see his qualities with his speed.
“Of course, he’s in the very early days of finding out how we play which is sometimes difficult for new players.”
Newcastle will now step things up against Arsenal at Singapore’s National Stadium.
The Gunners beat AC Milan 1-0 on Wednesday with the game ending in a penalty shoot out for exhibition purposes. That ended 6-5 to the Serie A club but Newcastle know that they will be up against an Arsenal team already in good shape.
Howe has been cautious about pre-season performances and results and said: “From my perspective, when you’re going into pre-season, you want your squad together from the first day and you want to work on everything you want to work on.
“It’s difficult to do that later on in pre-season because it takes time for our work to feed into the players.
“Whatever happens, happens, and we have to adapt. I’m confident we will try our very best to do it, but I’ve got no guarantees beyond that.
“We’re working as hard as we can every day to strengthen the squad.”
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