Montpellier’s Ligue 1 survival hopes rest squarely on the shoulders of a player who has been linked with Newcastle United for years.
It seems a strange criticism to level at a side top of the Championship table with the most goals to their name in the entire division, but Rafael Benitez will surely be in the market for another creative force to ensure Newcastle United don’t flop upon their seemingly inevitable Premier League return.
The Chronicle reported in January that Montpellier’s versatile attacker Ryad Boudebouz was offered to Newcastle United with chief scout Graham Carr a keen admirer of a player he has tracked for a number of years.
However, the publication adds that Benitez was unconvinced, instead setting his heart on alternative targets. Although it’s tempting to wonder whether the Spaniard may have been more receptive to the potential addition of Boudebouz if he had been aware at that point that Mike Ashley was planning to tighten the purse strings.
And the 27-year-old’s performances in the weeks since will surely have done him no harm of earning a long-mooted move across The Channel in the summer. Boudebouz has scored nine goals and set up another seven in a side just five points above the relegation zone in Ligue 1 and, without his spark in the midfield, Montpellier’s chances of survival would be slim to say the least.
Despite the 2012 champions losing 3-2 at home to struggling Nantes at the weekend, Boudebouz was once again at his influential best. He scored one, set up another, completed four key passes and two dribbles in a supreme individual performance only for his below-par team-mates to render his contribution worthless by conceding a last minute winner.
Boudebouz is simply too good for a side teetering above the Ligue 1 bottom three. And, given the opportunity, he could provide a much needed goal threat to an otherwise profligate Newcastle central midfield.
As long as he can win over Benitez, that is.
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