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Opinion

Two moments and Thauvin reminds Newcastle fans what they’ve been missing

9 years ago
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In 20 minutes, Florian Thauvin reminded some Newcastle fans of just how far their standards had fallen.

Recent seasons have seen a number of supporters defending the likes of Yoan Gouffran, Sammy Ameobi and Gabriel Obertan, arguing that somehow they lived up to the tag of a Premier League winger.

It actually only took Thauvin his first touch to convince most of us.

A Manchester United attack was cleared to him in the right-back position with Luke Shaw instantly closing him down, just off the bench and his debut at a new club, the smart money was on him trying to boot it up the line and just make sure he didn’t get the blame for making a cock-up on his debut.

Instead, the French winger tempted Shaw towards him before his quick feet unbalanced the defender and Thauvin was sprinting past him (watch below) and away up the line, only for the left-back to desperately pull his shirt and get booked.

Then in the final seconds, Newcastle almost won a famous victory, thanks in two ways to Thauvin.

Manchester hit the post and the ball was cleared for Wijnaldum to break, with Cisse and Thauvin in support, the ball ending up being crossed by the Senegalese striker and Florian Thauvin just fail to get his toe to the ball in the middle of the box.

Once again, when have you ever seen Newcastle’s wingers getting into the middle of the box and giving an extra scoring option, with the exception of Hatem Ben Arfa on a going day?

In the build-up to that almost match winning moment, as Newcastle broke you could see that with Man Utd outnumbered, Luke Shaw thought about bringing Wijnaldum down from behind in the centre circle.

I don’t think there is any doubt that he would have brought the Dutch midfielder down, IF he hadn’t been booked already.

This is yet another benefit of having a proper winger such as Thauvin, who will take players on and make them commit, leading to numerous yellow and possible red cards, causing extra problems for the opposition as defenders especially have to tread carefully.

Of course there is one other massive positive about a proper winger like Florian Thauvin and that is excitement, entertainment, the thing that gets you out of your seat as you see your winger running at the opposition.

As Thauvin said in his first interview when he arrived on Tyneside:

“I think football is not just a sport, it is an entertainment – when you go out there you do everything you can to make the fans happy, to enjoy watching me play.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

(John is just one of our ever expanding team of regular/irregular writers, send in your original articles for our website to contribute@themag.co.uk and share them with the world – all views are the author’s own etc etc)

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