00:00Eddie Howe has spoken of a challenging pre-season for Newcastle United this summer in terms of fixtures with the Magpies only winning one of their summer friendlies and looking at the continued absence of Alexander Izak as he continues to train away from the first team squad.
00:17I think the players have worked incredibly hard during pre-season it's been a challenging pre-season the games we've had have been very difficult and as I said the last couple of days at the moment we don't have 20 players or 22 players that we can put out that gives a really balanced display to both teams you had Arison Ashby today playing and playing well as a number eight but it's not his preferred position and I think it's always been the case in the teams that I try to build.
00:47I think if you have an area of the team that's not quite functioning as it needs to and no criticism of any individual because the team needs to function in a certain way for it to perform at his best we couldn't do that with 2-11s so we had to try and get the best out of the two games I thought we've done that but now the priority is just Aston Villa and we're putting out 1-11 and a squad hopefully that can win the game.
01:12And former Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka has been named the new captain of Sunderland by Regis Libris as the Blackharts prepare to kick off their new Premier League campaign.
01:23Yeah it makes me very very proud to be the captain of this football club but as well of the team makes me very proud and hopefully I can show as well my leadership on the pitch off the pitch and just to try to help all the people all the teammates in the training ground but as well in the football club.
01:45Rich Carter, Bobby Kerr, Charlie Hurley, Kevin Ball those are just some of the most famous names to have captained in this club and now you can add Granit Xhaka to that list. How does that feel to be part of history as well?
01:58To be part in this history with these names is just proud because it's not easy to be a captain of the football club because I know how much you need to deal with it.
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