Ousmane Diabate full international debut highlighted this massive upside of the player trading model

The key to making a player trading model work is ensuring a constant conveyor belt of young talent ready to take up the mantle when first team members are inevitably sold on.

Looking at the likes of Brighton and Bournemouth is enough evidence of that. I mean, how many times have we seen a random player nobody has heard of appear and take the league by storm?

Of course, the Magpies are still very early in this journey, and we are yet to really find out if they’ll be able to make it work.

But, if Ousmane Diabate’s international debut was anything to go by then we could be in for a very bright future for ‘Newcastle 2.0’.

Diabate’s debut

Diabate was called up for Guinea’s senior national team during this break and was handed his full debut a few days ago in a 1-0 victory against Kenya.

But Diabate didn’t just start the game, he controlled it.

The 18-year-old put in a man of the match performance for his country and was excellent throughout. He barely put a foot wrong during the entire game and looked as though he had been playing at that level for years despite his inexperience.

But, truth be told, this isn’t Diabate’s first time looking like a seasoned pro this season.

The midfielder is on loan at Turkish club Genclerbirligi and has looked every bit of the player Newcastle hope he will become in the future, averaging a match rating of 7.2 to this point.

Newcastle have talent everywhere

Add Diabate to this list of highly talented, young Newcastle United midfielders and it’s actually a little bit scary.

The likes of Lewis Miley, Steur and Bamba in the first-team set up all look like they could become world beaters if their talent is handled correctly.

The academy has players like Sam Alabi, Rory Finneran and Mason Miley edging closer to a senior breakthrough, with a plethora of younger talent also looking like very interesting prospects.

That suggests that, at least right now, the Magpies are managing a pretty good situation when it comes to that aforementioned player trading later down the line.

The player trading upside

Whilst it obviously comes with its challenges, having the sheer amount of talent that Newcastle do in those midfield areas all throughout the club could be huge going forward.

We have already seen how quickly the landscape of the central positions can change, with the Magpies’ main two midfielders both departing this past summer alongside those areas being some of the most sought after in the modern game.

Of course, there is some reliance on Newcastle’s talent ID to ensure these players are all capable of becoming something, but having such a deep bag of talent at this early stage of the new model can only bode well for when sales or the need to promote players to the senior set up arises.