OPINION
Newcastle United defender Antonio Barreca will surely be unleashed against Crystal Palace as he has put Rafa Benitez in the ideal scenario when it comes to taking a gamble on him.
The 24-year-old has made only one very brief cameo appearance for the Magpies since joining on loan in January, and hasn’t even made the recent matchday squads.
Barreca appeared to speak out about his lack of playing time on Wednesday by taking to his Instagram account to ask if the Magpies had forgotten about him.
“Newcastle, I’m here too! Have you forgotten⁉️” he said on his Instagram, before amending.
This of course garnered a lot of attention and in fact actually may have worked in the 24-year-old’s favour.
After the Magpies were disappointing against Arsenal on Monday night Benitez will be looking to make changes to his team for Saturday’s clash with Palace, and the player’s social media actions mean he is a risk-free gamble to take.
If Benitez hands Barreca a rare chance and he fails to take it, after the player’s public remarks about clearly wanting to feature more, fans will take their frustrations out on him.
This is especially the case when you consider that a number of Magpies fans took to social media to plead the left-back’s case for him and ask for him to be back in the squad after the defeat to the Gunners.
This means Benitez is practically blameless as if Barreca does excel then the player will be happy, so will the fans, and the Spanish manager will probably get credit for utilising him.
With this in mind surely the Magpies boss will hand the left-back a rare chance to impress on Saturday as the ideal scenario has been created for him to do so.
