This starter under pressure: Three things we learned from Newcastle United win over Stoke
Benitez knows what he is doing
When the team sheets were announced at 2pm on Saturday afternoon, there would have been more than a couple of Newcastle fans who were left scratching their heads.
Rafa Benitez had made three changes to his side, and while Christian Atsu coming in for Jacob Murphy, who failed to impress last week, made sense, the other two were somewhat contentious.
Out went full backs Javier Manquillo and Jesus Gamez, the former having helped keep two successive clean sheets and the latter impressing against Swansea, as they were replaced by DeAndre Yedlin and Chancel Mbemba.
The duo were both returning from injury, and it seemed a strange decision to shake up a backline who had functioned so well as a unit for the previous couple of games.
However, any doubts were washed away by the pair’s impressive performances, with both limiting the attacking potency of Stoke impressively.
They even posed an attacking threat, Yedlin using his blistering pace to launch several counter attacks, before using the same speed to track back when an attack broke down.
That will teach the fans to question Benitez.
Click ‘3’ below to see the second thing we learned in the 2-1 win over Stoke