IT is something of a cliché to suggest that a player returning from a long-term injury is “like a new signing”, but in the case of Newcastle United midfielder Siem de Jong, the phrase could hardly be more apt.

This time last year, de Jong was a new signing, with his £6m switch from Ajax promising to deliver the kind of creativity and vision that Newcastle had been crying out for in the closing stages of the previous campaign. It is easy to forget now, but at the time, de Jong’s arrival was greeted with the same sense of excitement that has accompanied the transfers of Georginio Wijnaldum and Florian Thauvin this summer.

Fast forward 12 months, however, and the 26-year-old finds himself cast in the role of the Magpies’ forgotten man. Tuesday’s appearance in the Capital One Cup win over Northampton was just his third start since moving to England, and marked the first occasion on which he has completed a full 90 minutes in a Newcastle shirt.

There is a sense that time has moved on without him, that this summer’s crop of new signings will render him irrelevant. Yet having battled his way back from two extremely serious injuries, the second of which saw him having to cope with a collapsed lung, de Jong is determined to show everyone at Newcastle what they have been missing while he has been recuperating on the sidelines.

“It’s been the toughest year of my career,” said de Jong, who claimed four Eredivisie titles during his time at the Amsterdam ArenA. “I’d had a few injuries in the year before with Ajax, but last year I only played three or four games. Before that, I was used to playing 50 games a season, so it was a really strange year.

“You have to move on, but it was difficult. For the second one (collapsed lung), I’d just got back and felt really strong, but then it happened again. I was pretty down for the first couple of weeks, but I had to get back and fit again. I thought for a while it would make me miss some of (this) season, so I was glad to be fit in pre-season and fit now.

“First of all, it’s been disappointing for myself, then also for the club, my team-mates and the people watching. It’s a new club, and you hope to start off well. I think I started well in pre-season, but then it ended almost straight away. It was difficult because I couldn’t really help.”

De Jong is keen to put that right as quickly as possible, but his task will be made harder by the presence of Wijnaldum, Newcastle’s £14.5m star summer signing, and a player who likes to occupy the pivotal ‘number ten’ position that is also de Jong’s preferred role.

Remy Cabella’s Newcastle career effectively came to an end because he wasn’t able to establish himself in the position that would best play to his strengths, and given that de Jong has not started any of the Magpies’ opening three league games, there has to be a fear that the Dutchman’s time on Tyneside could be heading the same way.

Could de Jong and Wijnaldum play in the same team? Unsurprisingly, both players tend to answer in the affirmative, and Steve McClaren has dismissed suggestions that is has to be one player or the other. Unless one of them is shuffled across the flank though, a move that would almost certainly diminish their effectiveness, it is impossible to see how they can both be squeezed in unless McClaren opts for a radical change in formation.

“We have played together before, so I hope we can play together again,” argued de Jong. “I like him (Wijnaldum) as a player. He is like Florian  – he has an eye for other people and is good on the ball as well. We will see what happens in the coming weeks, but I hope I can play with him.”

For now, though, de Jong can at least bask in the afterglow of his best display in a Newcastle shirt on Tuesday night. It might only have been a League Cup second-round tie against Northampton, but his poise and assurance in possession were obvious throughout, and his neat finish from a Thauvin free-kick brought him his second goal in English football.

“I think there’s a different atmosphere now,” he said. “It’s a new start for everybody, so everybody will be positive. The last game against Manchester United was a boost for the team, even though we didn’t win.

“It was a good result, and against Northampton, everyone was happy that we finished off the game quite easily. That means we can go into the Arsenal game with quite a good feeling.”