José Enrique back to face Portsmouth

Apr 24 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

JOSÉ Enrique will be enthusiastically welcomed back from injury against Portsmouth on Monday, just months after Newcastle were trying to force the Spanish full- back out of the club.

Enrique has gone from strength-to- strength this season, even though former manager Kevin Keegan made no secret of his desire to sign his replacement while his successor, Joe Kinnear, was also keen to offload the former Villareal prospect.

But, to his credit, the £6.3m signing by Sam Allardyce has not allowed the uncertainty regarding his future to disillusion him and new Magpies boss Alan Shearer admitted he was the one player they really could not afford to lose to injury in their battle to avoid the drop.

The 23-year-old, who is the only specialist left-back in the squad following a series of failures to sign another one, has missed Newcastle’s last two games, but is set to return against Pompey, to Shearer’s obvious relief.

Shearer was forced to adopt an unfamiliar 3-5-2 formation in the games at Stoke City and Tottenham Hotspur, and the former club captain is still stunned that blatant deficiency in the squad went un-remedied for so long.

"It’s posed a major problem for us, because our one and only left-back has not been fit," said Shearer, who expects Enrique to return to full training on Saturday. "As a result, we’ve had to ask players to play out of position and go with different formations to what we would otherwise have gone with.

"From that point of view, losing José was just about the worst thing that could have happened. If you’ve only got one left- back, you can’t afford to lose him.

"If he’d been fit, I wouldn’t have made the changes I’ve had to make. If our left- back had been fit, he would have been playing at left-back. Simple as that."