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Opinion

Former teammate’s claims on Joselu bear no relation to reality

7 years ago
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Joselu has had an interesting start to his Newcastle career.

Scoring on his first start in a 3-0 win over West Ham, playing well at Swansea in another victory and seeing a second goal denied by a world class Fabianski save, then a trio of sitters missed against Stoke – thankfully not preventing the eventual third win in a row.

At Brighton though, one close range effort missed and an overall performance that never really threatened, not helped of course by the totally ineffectual Ayoze Perez as his main ‘support’.

It is not exactly the knives are out for Joselu, more a case of the Newcastle fans realising that this is what you get for £5m these days, a Stoke City reserve striker who puts plenty effort in – but who you can’t be relying on as the main goal provider this season.

However, one of his former Stoke teammates has been waxing  lyrical about Joselu, especially his finishing, though it doesn’t exactly bear much relation to reality…

Steve Sidwell talking to BBC Five Live:

“I have got to say, Joselu was probably one of the best finishers at Stoke. Honestly, frightening.

“If you called up any of the lads from Stoke now, they would honestly say he was unreal. Left foot, right foot, any kinds of finish in the air.

“What is encouraging is that having gone to Newcastle, he is getting into the positions to do it and it is only a matter of time.

“If it does click, he will go into double figures.

“At times at Stoke he was a lone striker, doing jobs he maybe didn’t want to do, but I think he has learned now and that mentality has kicked in.

“He knows he has got to put that graft in now but, as far as finishing is concerned, he could do every type of finish…in the box, outside the box, volley, left foot, right foot.

“Honestly – Joselu was superb.”

Well, at the age of 27 Joselu isn’t a kid and this is his sixth season of playing in the top division of a major league (Spain, Germany, England).

Overall in these past six seasons of top flight football, Joselu has scored 32 league goals in 126 appearances (86 starts, 40 off the bench) and got 9 assists.

A player who contributes half a dozen goals on average per season and one or two assists. When he was with Steve Sidwell at Stoke, it was four goals and one assist.

He (Joselu) is what he is, a solid trier who can play a part in Newcastle’s season but can’t be a regular first team player.

Sidwell talks about in training, well Newcastle fans have had plenty of that, even Shola and Obertan were always flying in training, or so we were told by Alan Pardew.

Doing it in the first team is a very different matter.

Joselu career record so far:

2012/13 – 25 league appearances (17 starts 8 as a sub) and 5 goals and 2 assists for Hoffenheim

2013/14 – 24 league appearances (18 starts 6 as a sub) and 9 goals and 2 assists for Eintracht Frankfurt

2014/15 – 30 league appearances (28 starts 2 as a sub) and 8 goals and 3 assists for Hannover

2015/16 – 22 league appearances (10 starts 12 as a sub) and 4 goals and 1 assist for Stoke

2016/17 – 20 league appearances (9 starts 11 as a sub) and 5 goals and 1 assist for Deportivo

2017/18 –  4 league appearances (4 starts 1 as a sub) and 1 goal and 0 assists for Newcastle United
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