Newcastle United face an FA Cup replay against Rochdale following their draw on Saturday.
Darren Bent has claimed that Rafa Benitez was ‘clearly right’ about Newcastle striker Joelinton and how the club paid over the odds for the player following Steve Bruce’s side recording a 1-1 draw in the FA Cup against Rochdale on Saturday.
Joelinton started the encounter, but he was unable to find the back of the net against the League One side, as Newcastle were forced into a replay.
Newcastle secured the services of Joelinton in the summer for a fee of £40 million [BBC Sport], just weeks after Benitez had opted against signing a new contract.
Speaking to GameDay Your Verdict on TalkSport (04/01/20 at 7:20 pm), Bent thinks that Rafa’s warnings should have been heard prior to Joelinton putting pen-to-paper.
“You know what’s scary,” Bent told TalkSport. “I don’t think he was prolific before you signed him. I always like to see fellow strikers do really well and he was signed for a lot of money. And when I saw the price-tag, I was like ‘wow’.
“And then I checked his background and his stats. The most he has scored in a season is eight or nine goals. To spend that amount of money on your centre-forward after losing Rondon as well, I did question it. Every week people are going to talk about the price-tag. People are going to talk about his lack of goals and it’s going to get tougher for him.
“I think that’s why the fans liked Almiron. You could see every single game, he was unlucky, but he kept running and working hard for the team. And that’s why Bruce felt he couldn’t take him out of the team.
“Rafa is a very good manager. If he is saying that ‘listen that’s too high’. You would have thought that someone would have listened to him and thought ‘maybe we are paying over the odds here’. And now he’s Steve Bruce’s problems. I would’ve liked to have thought that Bruce did have a conversation with Rafa. Just to say, ‘what’s this player like and what’s he like’. But if Rafa was saying that it was way too much money then obviously no-one has listened to him and Rafa was clearly right.”
Benitez wouldn’t have been at the club when Joelinton officially signed, but given what Newcastle paid for him, he would have known that the club were scouting him and planning on paying big bucks for his services.
It isn’t working out for the Brazilian who came under his biggest criticism because of his performance against a team sitting in the third-tier of English football.
Andy Carroll is Newcastle’s other striker, but he is yet to get off the mark on his return to the club and has suffered a number of big injuries over the years. Added with that, Dwight Gayle clearly isn’t fancied by Bruce, and him not being in the matchday squad for the Rochdale match was proof of that.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
