Darren Gough has slammed Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez for spending £9.5million on Yoshinori Muto in the summer transfer window.
Muto, 26, has scored just one goal in 15 appearances across all competitions since joining the Magpies from Mainz, however his campaign has been interrupted by injury and the Asian Cup with Japan, while Salomon Rondon’s form also hasn’t helped his cause.
Former England cricketer Gough has now claimed that he thought Muto would be the worst signing of the season at the time of him joining Newcastle.
“He hasn’t had much money to spend, we all know that, but he went and got [Miguel] Almiron for a record £20million, which is decent money. But he’s got to spend his money better,” said Gough, as shown on talkSPORT’s official Twitter account on Tuesday.
“He went and got Muto. I’m no football expert but at the start of the season I thought ‘that could probably turn out to be the worst signing of the season’.
“He’s scored one goal for them, not really settled in well, has he?
“£9.5million you spend on just someone. Did he bring him in to start or to just come off the bench? Because most of his signings seem to be that.”
“What’s the point in signing Almiron when you play like that?” 😡
“He needs to spend his money better, Muto has scored one goal.”@talkSPORTDrive on Rafa Benitez and #NUFC after their defeat to Arsenal 👀 pic.twitter.com/Wnh257BDEu
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) April 2, 2019
OPINION
Muto was never expected to pull up trees at Newcastle. The Japan international had hardly been prolific in the Bundesliga with Mainz before joining the Tyneside club and Benitez was always going to struggle to sign someone better than him for less than £10million. At the end of the day, Benitez has signed sub-par players because he has a worse transfer budget than what some teams have had in the Championship in recent years. Mike Ashley shocked everyone when he let Benitez spend £20million in January to buy Almiron, but that should have been the kind of money he should have been spending a long time ago. Newcastle’s squad is not much better now than when they were promoted, and that’s not because Benitez is buying bad players, it’s because Ashley is not letting Benitez buy good players. He can’t be expected to buy world-beaters when Muto is the best that’s available to him.
