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A Surprising Hero Could Be Emerging At Newcastle United

11 years ago
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While Moussa Sissoko might have grabbed most of the headlines, one of his fellow January signings may prove to be at least as important, or who knows, possibly even more so in the future.

Following the Spurs match, Alan Pardew highlighted Yoan Gouffran’s enforced substitution as the turning point in the match and certainly we lost all momentum on that left hand side, with Marveaux unable to cope with Kyle Walker defensively and no attacking threat going forward as well.

Gouffran had a busy but unspectacular debut at Villa, then impressed against Chelsea and created the vital equaliser with a lung-bursting run from the halfway line.

Against Spurs the striker went up another notch as his clever link up play stood out and of course he scored his first goal after an excellent team move with the final assist by Moussa Sissoko.

In our man of the match poll we can now reveal that Gouffran ended up with a massive 51% of the fan vote, with Cabaye way back on 15%, Krul 11% and Taylor 8%.

In a previous article on Gouffran [intlink id=”23930″ type=”post”]When Second Choice Doesn\’t Always Mean Second Best At Newcastle[/intlink] I had the following to say about our January striking import;

‘However, while Remy is clearly somebody with a bigger reputation, it is interesting to see the stats which tell us that before this past weekend, only two players had scored more goals in France than Yoan Gouffran since the start of last season.

In that season and a half you had Gomis on 25, Aubameyang (who we were also linked with) on 24 and Gouffran third with 22.

Not bad, especially for a player who doesn’t always play as an out and out striker, as has been the case in his two games so far for Newcastle. However, that vital second goal against Chelsea showed once again that pace is vital in the Premier League as Gouffran’s electrifying burst from the halfway line meant nobody could catch him. Then his decent shot was blocked only for the maybe even quicker Moussa Sissoko to tap in after matching Gouffran’s run’.

The initial signs are that Gouffran could be that player Newcastle have been crying out for, a striker who looks just as comfortable playing out wide.

Thankfully the x-ray showed he hadn’t broken his leg and fingers crossed Gouffran is back on the pitch for Southampton and turns in another man of the match performance.

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