OPINION
Newcastle United winger Christian Atsu has previously proven himself to be a liability for the club but during the loss to Leicester City on Saturday he showed promising signs.
The 26-year-old winger played the full 90minutes of the Magpies’ 2-0 lost to The Foxes at St James Park and actually could make a case for himself why he was one of the few positives of his side’s performance.
Rafa Benitez’s team struggled to get any sort of foothold in the game against Leicester City with their opponents dominating possession and being relatively untested at the back.
Given that hardly any Magpies player shone due to not seeing much of the ball, Atsu defied the odds by actually looking better than he has previously done in his outings.
The winger regularly bested his marker to get in decent positions where ever possible and actually made a few crosses that his teammates should have done more with.
This was especially the case when Atsu whipped in the perfect cross for Mohamed Diame to head home as the winger did all he could to make it easy for his fellow midfielder to score.
Yet Diame, who has struggled himself this season, woefully headed it wide.
Usually in games, particularly his outing in the EFL Cup against Nottingham Forest and his cameo appearance against Spurs this season, Atsu looked like a player playing above the level he should be.
The 26-year-old has often been seen to be a liability as he would contribute very little, give the ball away carelessly and just be a waste of space.
However that wasn’t the case on Saturday as he showed signs that he could handle himself in the league and did it when his teammates made his job even harder by failing to submit good performances themselves.
This all means that while a lot of attention will be put on the many negatives from Saturday’s games, Magpies supporters should probably be hopeful that Atsu, who usually lets them down, defied the odds against the Foxes and showed signs of why he is actually at a Premier League club.
