Jamie Carragher has suggested that Newcastle United’s signing of Miguel Almiron will give the whole club a lift.
The former Atlanta United man completed a £20million deadline day switch to Tyneside on Thursday, and the Sky pundit expects him to make an impact on the overall morale at the club.
However Carragher has cast doubt over whether or not Almiron could be good enough for the Premier League.
Speaking on the Sky Sports website, he said: “No matter who the player was, just breaking the transfer record puts the negativity of continuously talking about it to bed. It gives the supporters and Rafa Benitez a lift.
“We know Rafa Benitez can organise Newcastle but as a coach you can’t really coach that quality they need in the final third. You can work on it and improve it but sometimes it’s just about spending money and getting that quality in. It remains to be seen whether he is good enough for the Premier League but it will give everyone a lift.
“It’s not so much the player, it’s the impact it will have on the supporters going into games. It will give everyone at the club a lift. Hopefully Almiron will get some excitement back to Newcastle.”
OPINION
It’s tricky one this, because usually going out and breaking a transfer record in January would be seen as a real statement of intent from a club, with Mike Ashley at the helm things are never that simple. It’s hard to believe that the controversial owner has suddenly undergone some kind of epiphany and decided to give the Benitez the kind of financial backing he has been crying out for for so long. There is almost certainly an ulterior motive, and the reality is probably that Ashley has recognised the need to invest to prevent his club from going under and damaging his chances of moving it on in the future. If Newcastle were to relegated, given everything that the supporters have had to endure over the past decade, there is every chance that it would be the final straw, and if that was the case, then it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see a large portion of their loyal fanbase vote with their feet. That would be a disaster for Ashley, and he will know that signing Almiron could pay itself back big time in the future.
