Newcastle United forward Yoshinori Muto is “pushing” to be included in Steve Bruce’s plans against Tottenham this weekend, according to Chronicle journalist Lee Ryder.
The £54,000-a-week [Spotrac] Japanese international has struggled to make an impact on Tyneside since joining last summer, making just five Premier League starts in total, but did feature in a cameo role in the Magpies’ 3-1 defeat to Norwich City on Saturday.
And Ryder has claimed that he is doing his best to play again this weekend.
Writing in a piece for the Chronicle, he said: “Yoshinori Muto is pushing in training but did not show much in his 22 minute run out at Norwich.”
OPINION
Muto is surely reaching a make-or-break point in his Newcastle career. After a wholly disappointing debut year in England that yielded just one Premier League goal, he has rarely looked like forcing his way into the first team picture at all. in his defence, he did have a season interrupted by international duty when he had to travel for the Asian Cup, but that shouldn’t stop him from making good on his chances when they do come along. Against Norwich on Saturday, he was blatantly poor, having now shots, no successful dribbles, and only registering five passes in a 23 minute spell, as per Whoscored. He may not have had a lot of time to change the course of the match, and he may have been coming into a situation that was largely beyond his control, but the whole point of a striker is to win games, and at no point in his Toon career as he looked capable of doing that. He needs to pull his finger out sharpish.