On Wednesday, Garang Kuol made his Newcastle United debut after entering the game late in the Melbourne penalty shootout victory over Tottenham Hotspur.
After signing a contract with Newcastle in January 2023, the Australian international was loaned out to Heart of Midlothian and then Volendam in the Netherlands the following summer. After 90 minutes, the match ended 1-1, with the 19-year-old coming on as Callum Wilson’s replacement in the last minutes.
Newcastle won the penalty shootout 5–4 after Kuol scored his kick. Eddie Howe, the head coach, was happy to see Kuol in a matchday environment for the first time.
The Newcastle manager remarked, “He’s been with us since we started our journey from England.” It’s wonderful to talk to him and see him again, but it was a challenging game for him to enter since we didn’t have a lot of possession and the opposition was a little younger, so it came down to defending and winning that way.
“I’m happy for him because he contributed to that and handled his punishment incredibly well.”
On Friday at 8:05 a.m. BST, Kuol will play for Newcastle against an A-League All Stars XI. The young player had previously played for the A-League All Stars against Barcelona in a friendly in 2022.
“Definitely, he’ll be involved,” Howe added. “It will be a younger team for us. We’ll play a younger team so the majority of the experienced players will have finished their seasons.”
“It’s very difficult to say for certain what’s going to happen with a player at this stage because there’s a long way to go before the season starts but possibly another loan spell for him will be important,” Howe continued.
“He’s had a couple of loan spells now but he needs the next one to be a successful one and we need him to get more game time and hopefully that will happen.”
