Newcastle United boss Rafa Benitez is delighted with the form of Florian Lejeune this season.

Lejeune arrived last summer from Eibar.

“I think he is doing really well and, at the same time, I feel he has been really unlucky, which is not something I think a lot of people realise," Benitez said of Lejeune.

“I was talking with Antonio [Gomez Perez, Newcastle's first-team coach] about this and about when Florian was at Girona and Eibar. He had no injuries in Spain, he was always playing every game.

“Then, for us, in the first game against Tottenham, one bad tackle, a big problem, and since then he had a couple of months before kicking a ball during a tackle with Ayoze [Perez], and there's another injury.

“So he has been really unlucky for someone who is coming here; a new centre-back, someone who needs to know what it means to be involved in the physicality of the Premier League."