HAD Georginio Wijnaldum remained in Holland this summer, he would almost certainly have spent this week helping PSV Eindhoven record the 2-0 victory over Wolfsburg that leaves the Dutch champions well placed to make the knock-out stages of the Champions League.

Instead, he heads to Bournemouth this lunchtime as part of a Newcastle United side that is struggling in the Premier League relegation zone with just one league victory to their name this season.

The contrast could hardly be starker, and as he ponders the fall-out from his £14.5m move to Tyneside this summer, Wijnaldum could be forgiven for wondering if he made the wrong move by crossing the North Sea.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, and having boldly spoken of potential European qualification when he was unveiled in the summer, the 24-year-old now finds himself embroiled in what could well prove a lengthy battle in the lower reaches of the table.

Nevertheless, as he prepares for today’s game, which is already being billed as a ‘relegation six-pointer’ in some quarters, it is impossible to detect any bitterness or regret on his face.

His beaming smile remains as natural as ever, and if there is any frustration at having swapped European football’s top table for the drudgery that has become all-too-familiar at St James’ Park, it is extremely well disguised.

“I’m still enjoying my football,” said Wijnaldum, whose domestic disappointments have been accompanied by the bitter hurt of Holland’s failure to qualify for next summer’s European Championships in France. “I still feel a lot of pleasure.

“Some people might think that’s strange because the team as a whole has not gone so well and we’ve not been getting the points we’ve wanted, but I can still take a lot of pleasure from playing here.

“That’s important because when I’m enjoying myself, I play better. If I start worrying about the league position and say, ‘Oh no, where are we in the rankings’, it will affect my performance and I won’t let that happen.”

That is not to say, however, that everything in Wijnaldum’s world is rosy. Signed as the ‘number ten’ who would unlock Newcastle’s creativity and pull the attacking strings behind lone striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, the Dutchman currently finds himself stationed on the left-hand side in order to accommodate Ayoze Perez’s presence in the central area.

His performances since arriving in the summer have been inconsistent, so it is easy to see why McClaren has opted to tinker with his position. Perez has been one of Newcastle’s strongest performers in the last couple of games, with the Spaniard boasting more pace and explosive energy than Wijnaldum.

Wijnaldum’s strengths are more subtle however, with his technical ability and superb sense of timing making him more of a midfield playmaker in the mould of Cesc Fabregas or David Silva than a ‘number ten’ who chases here, there and everywhere in an attempt to harass the opposition defence.

His qualities were abundantly obvious as he scored four goals in Newcastle’s 6-2 demolition of Norwich City, and it was telling that while he was swapping positions with Perez, he spent most of that game filling a central role.

Given that his side have failed to score in each of their last two outings, might it be time for McClaren to restore Wijnaldum to his preferred role when the Magpies visit Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium this afternoon?

“I prefer it in the middle because I think I can influence the game more there and score more goals,” said the Dutchman. “If you look at the game against Norwich, three of my four goals came from the middle and the last one came from the left.

“I have a better feeling playing through the middle, but the trainer has asked me to do something different and that’s what I’m doing.

“He’s the boss and he decides. At the moment, he thinks it’s best for me to be on the left, and that’s fine, although I have a better feeling in the middle.

“Probably every player will say they have somewhere they prefer, but you can’t always be there and it’s the manager who is the one who decides. You have to listen to that, and I will still be doing my best wherever I play.”