Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez has revealed what he’s been telling Magpies attacker Ayoze Perez amid his fine run of form.
The Spaniard has scored his team’s last five goals, and Benitez has claimed that it’s his constant work on the training ground which has produced this career-best form.
“The credit is all for him,” he told The Chronicle. “My staff talk with him all the time but he more or less knows what he had to do. It is more a case of telling him in every training session he can do this or that or telling him he’s doing this thing right or this thing wrong.
“Then we repeat these messages. In the end he is the one that is learning a lot and he’s ready to fight. Ayoze is a player that is keen to learn and I am telling him all the time it is about staying consistent.”
OPINION
Perez has undoubtedly come on leaps and bounds in recent weeks and is now very much Newcastle’s most in-form player and, indeed, one of the most in-form players in the entire Premier League. However, there’s no doubt that he couldn’t have achieved this run of form without Benitez guiding him. We’ve seen a huge improvement in the play of nearly every Magpies player since Benitez came to the club, and Perez has been one of those who has benefitted the most from his countryman being in charge. It is all about being more consistent, though, and that’s what the 25-year-old struggled with earlier on this campaign and in season’s past. However, in the past few months he has made huge improvements in that area. He is starting to put things together and performing on a regular basis. Indeed, he is now a consistent difference-maker, which is what he always had the potential to become.
