Newcastle United ended the January 2020 transfer window with three signings - winger Valentino Lazano from Inter Milan, Nabil Bentaleb from Schalke and perhaps most impressively of all, Danny Rose from Spurs who was England's left back in September and played in The Champions League Final last May - all on loan yet not adding a new goal-scorer is most fans' takeaway from the window as Newcastle place faith in record buy Joelinton, Andy Carroll, Yoshi Muto & Dwight Gayle.
Naturally, there were calls for the club to add another goalscorer to the ranks as the current crop at Steve Bruce's disposal - Joelinton, Carroll, Muto and Gayle have scored just one Premier League goal between them so far this season yet Muto needs games, Carroll and Gayle fitness & Joelinton needs time to adjust to life in a new country and top flight football in England as well as his new position.
When Newcastle United broke the club transfer record for a second successive transfer window in the summer of 2019 paying a reported £40M for Brazilian striker Joelinton and handing him the no. 9 shirt, it was a long-term investment.
The 6ft 1in Brazilian turned 23 a month after joining The Magpies signing a 6-year deal that would see the best years of his career played at St. James' Park and it was the statement signing Mike Ashley hoped would appease the Toon Army after manager Rafa Benitez left the club along with Salomon Rondon & Ayoze Perez.
Goals-wise, Joelinton hasn't hit the ground running in a black and white shirt yet in the Premier League scoring just once in the top flight - a memorable winner at Spurs which represented Newcastle's first Away winning goal at a Top 6 team since 2015.
Yet the signing of Joelinton - permanently fit and willing to put his body in the firing line week-in week-out in the Premier League - has paid off for The Magpies under new Head Coach Steve Bruce, who has guided Newcastle to their best start to a season in the top flight since Alan Pardew in 2014/5 amassing 30 points.
With Joelinton leading the line, Newcastle have won 7 Premier League games so far in 2019/20 and 8 in total with Andy Carroll starting the Sheffield United away win, with 14 games remaining.
By contrast, Newcastle won a total of 11 games with ageing Salomon Rondon leading the line last season after he wasn't fully fit until November and in the calendar year of 2019, The Magpies never won a top flight game that Joselu started in the worst season start in the club's history.
The big Brazilian has added a stronger physical presence at the top of the spine of Bruce's never-say-die Mags with his work rate, physical robustness and stamina and its no shock that Joelinton has won the second most aerial duels in The Premier League this season with 129 headers won in his 23 starts so far, second only to West Ham striker Sebastian Haller.
His increased involvement and occupying of defenders has come to the fore in recent games and was no more in evidence than in the 93rd minute against Chelsea when he won a corner in the dying seconds of his third game in eight days that Newcastle scored the winning goal from to win three points.
Joelinton is a team player who sacrifices everything for the side, playing in an unnatural lone striker target man role in the first instance having been used to playing in a Roberto Firmino-typed false 9 role at Hoffenheim behind a striker or as a wide, creative forward like he played at Burnley away with Andy Carroll up front.
(Read more here - The Joelinton Role)
Yet its the new central role he's learning game by game and he always offers himself as an attacking outlet for his teammates to pass to or play a ball up to with his back to goal and and he never hides despite often having attention of one, two or even three opposition centre backs at a time which creates space and opportunity for wingers Miguel Almiron and Allan Saint-Maximin to exploit.
Despite an equally impressive work rate, many were still doubting whether Almiron had what it took to truly make it in The Premier League after he went 26 games without scoring a goal for Newcastle yet after notching his first against Crystal Palace, the Paraguayan hasn't looked back and duly notched another 3 in as many games in 2020.
And the truism that young players coming from other Leagues especially need a period of adjustment to the high-octane environment of a Premier League that gets faster, more physical, technically-better and more competitive every single season is more true now than it ever has been as the development of modern football marches irrepressibly on.
When Joelinton - who has chipped in with assists against West Ham and Man United - and created the most key passes of any Newcastle players, scored his first competitive Newcastle goal at St. James' Park against Rochdale in The FA Cup, he ran straight over to Steve Bruce who has never lost faith in him to celebrate and fans, club staff and his fellow players are desperate to see a popular player succeed and defy the boo boys.
"No matter how he looks, we've always got the statistics to prove otherwise.
"In training and on match days, his physical statistics are very, very good.
He's going through that classic scenario of a striker who can't score a goal. All of that gets heaped upon them, and it's amazing what a goal does."
And the Newcastle manager like all true fans is hoping the best is yet to come for the Brazilian as Newcastle, who are just 4 points from 5th place and play the bottom club Norwich City today, can finally have a decent crack at winning a Cup competition for the first time since Alan Pardew's Europa League Quarter Final in 2013.
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