Former Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce has admitted that the Magpies’ club record signing of attacker Joelinton is ‘a risk’.
Steve Bruce’s side smashed their previous most expensive transfer, set only this January by the purchase of winger Miguel Almiron, to bring the Brazilian to St James’ Park on Tuesday.
Now, ‘Big Sam’ has had his say: “It’s the most difficult position today to find, probably always has been, I think, but even more so now because there are fewer centre forwards with the capability to play in the Premier League,” he told talkSPORT [24/07; 06:13].
“This is a risk, there’s no doubt about that. At £40million the Newcastle fans will expect great things, and their demand will be to hit the ground running. It may take a while for him to settle in.”
OPINION
Well, Allardyce has put a bit of a dampener on the Joelinton excitement, hasn’t he? There’s no doubt that, having spent as much money as they have on the attacker, that the transfer is a risk. Spending big money on a player is always risky business, especially when it’s a club who aren’t accustomed to splashing the cash, like Newcastle. It’s going to be difficult to manage expectations after this sort of fee, even though the Magpies supporters will know that it takes time to adapt to the Premier League. However, with the price tag he has, the 22-year-old won’t be given the longest leash in the world. You always have to pay more money to sign attackers, though, and that’s always been the case. There’s an inherent bias towards attacking players in the transfer market, because the most important thing in football is putting the ball in the back of the net. Let’s hope that Joelinton can hit the ground running and prove ‘Big Sam’ wrong, here.
