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Jonjo Shelvey came 'close' to leaving Newcastle United to join West Ham but admits he is now playing for a new contract with the Magpies.

The 27-year-old, who was born and raised in Romford and is a boyhood Hammers fan, was heavily linked with a summer move to the London Stadium.

Shelvey made just 10 starts in an injury-disrupted campaign last season and his future was far from certain if Rafa Benitez signed a new contract.

But the midfielder has now revealed that Newcastle did not want to let him go and stopped him from returning to the capital.

"I just want to be part of the squad. I get labelled that I'm a sulker and that I'm not part of this team. I'm part of this team. I get paid by this football club. I'll do what the manager tells me to do and what the hierarchy tell me to do," he explained to reporters after the penalty shootout defeat against Leicester on Wednesday night.

"I'm not one to do loads and loads of interviews. You won't find me on social media - I'm not interested in all that. Let people do the talking. I've not once stated that I want to leave this club. I was close to leaving to go to West Ham but it never came - the club said no to it.

"I'm happy here, I love living in the city. My kids go to school here, they love it. The oldest one is starting to talk like a Geordie. My youngest one was born up here. I love living here."

Whoever was in charge, Shelvey was keen to make an impact this summer; just days after scoring in the final game of last season, against Fulham, the midfielder jetted off to Dubai for a warm-weather training camp.

Shelvey ran 6K most days ahead of the start of pre-season training and, with little under two years left on his contract, he knows he needs to impress Steve Bruce.

"You hear things that you're lazy. I get labelled lazy maybe because of my body language and I'm quite a laid-back character," he said.

"I just get called lazy. I wasn't lazy out there tonight. My thigh started to hurt the other day in training. We were practising penalties and the same problem I had last week where basically I played on one leg tonight with my thigh.

"You couldn't call me lazy out there tonight. People can say what they want. At the end of the day, I'm the one that goes out there and trains every day as hard as I can. I'm playing for another contract at this football club and I need to keep performing and keep training hard."

Shelvey captained Newcastle in their Carabao Cup defeat against Leicester as the Magpies exited the competition at the second-round stage for the third year in a row.

Both Shelvey and Isaac Hayden missed penalties in the shootout and the former predicted he would not be able to sleep on Wednesday night because his 'shocking' spot-kick was replaying in his head.

Bruce and the players took a lot of heart from how a much-changed side dealt with a strong Leicester XI, though, and there was plenty of hard-running off the ball.

It remains to be seen if anyone came close to the 13K Sean Longstaff clocked up against Spurs on Sunday.

"They've not got that board up in there yet. We'll find out tomorrow what the stats are but stats are stats. You can run 15K if you want," Shelvey said.

"At the end of the day, I'm a footballer. Do you see Gazza running 15K? Do you see people like that? I'm not comparing myself to them but I understand that football is changing and evolving, and I am evolving with it, but I get labelled lazy. On that performance tonight, I don't think I was lazy. If that's what it takes to get into the team, I'll do it. "

Shelvey, who hopes to go into management one day, does not expect to start when Premier League action resumes against Watford on Saturday and understands why after how well the team played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

While it was tough to have been dropped in North London after starting the first two games of the season, Shelvey can't fault how Bruce went about it.

"You pick things up and you read things and I just think they need to get off the gaffer's back," he said. "He's come in here and he's doing a good job. It's enjoyable to work with him.

"I got dropped the other day. You're disappointed but the day after, you're doing a session that just totally makes you forget. It was hard on the day I got dropped on the day of the game, but it happens in football.

"I was going to go knock on the gaffer's door the next day because I was top scorer at the time! Look, they went and won - that's football - and the next day you come into training and show the gaffer you should've been playing. I got the chance tonight and screwed up with the penalty miss, but it is what it is in football and you've just got to keep going."

Watford are the only team who have lost all of their opening three Premier League fixtures this season and Newcastle will be desperate to go into the international break on a high with a win on Saturday.

Although Bruce made seven changes against Leicester, key men Matt Ritchie and Emil Krafth started and both had to come off with potential ankle damage and a thigh strain respectively.

Bruce was incensed by Hamza Choudhury's reckless challenge on Ritchie, which left him hobbling off straight down the tunnel before half-time. So how is Shelvey's team-mate?

"I just saw the coming together. I think they've watched it back and I think it was a red card," he added. "He's got a nasty gash on his leg. He's not in there at the minute - I don't know where he's gone - but he wasn't too happy to be fair. He's an angry little man, anyway.

"He's a big character. Knowing Matty, he will be back training tomorrow because he just can't sit still. Even when he's played a game like this, and you're on a recovery day the day afterwards, he's begging the manager to train. He's one of them that wants to be training all the time."