Newcastle United’s Antonio Barreca has barely featured since signing.
Newcastle United brought in two January signings; one of them has made huge headlines, with playmaker Miguel Almiron joining from Atlanta United in a club-record deal.
The other has almost been forgotten already. Left back Antonio Barreca arrived on loan from Monaco until the end of the season, with a view to a permanent move, but that looks pretty much impossible now.
Barreca, 24, only joined Monaco from Torino last summer, but has struggled for playing time, leading to him being loaned to Newcastle – but it’s been much of the same for the Italian.
Barreca has played just four minutes of Premier League action for Newcastle in more than two months at St James’ Park, arriving at the worst possible time.
It seemed like Newcastle desperately needed a left back, but that changed around his arrival. Matt Ritchie dropped back into a left wing back role, then Paul Dummett returned from injury.
That means that Barreca is essentially third choice at Newcastle, and it seems unlikely that he’ll be playing much between now and the end of the season, when he returns to Monaco.
In fact, Newcastle failed to add a photo of Barreca into a training gallery earlier today, so the defender took to Instagram to post the photo himself and ask whether the Magpies have forgotten about him.
Fans took that to be a shot at Rafael Benitez for not playing him more, which wasn’t the case, and he later adjusted the post to state that he’s working hard to make sure he’s ready to play whenever needed – which may not actually happen.
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