Rafael Benitez praises Newcastle’s Florian Lejeune after a trying first season at St James’s Park.
Speaking to The Shields Gazette, Rafael Benitez has singled out Newcastle United defender Florian Lejeune for credit following a difficult first season on Tyneside.
Lejeune joined Newcastle in an £8.7 million deal from Eibar last summer.
The Frenchman’s debut was marred on the opening day of the season when an injury meant that he had to replaced within 33 minutes, and Magpies fans didn’t see him again until October.
The 26-year-old was an ever-present figure for Benitez’s side until December, when Lejeune was sidelined for another two months after yet another setback in training.
But the former France Under-20 international has been fit since mid-February and the Spanish manager claimed to the Shields Gazette that people need to consider his rotten luck before judging him.
He said: “I think he is doing really well and I, at the same time, feel he has been really unlucky, which isn’t something I think a lot of people realise.
“I was talking with Antonio [Gomez, Newcastle’s first-team coach] about this and about when Florian was at Girona and Eibar. He had no injuries in Spain. He was always playing – every game.
“Then, for us, in the first game against Tottenham, one bad tackle, a big problem, and since then he had a couple of months before kicking a ball during a tackle with Ayoze, and there’s another injury.
“So he has been really unlucky for someone who is coming here; a new centre-back, someone who needs to know what it means to be involved in the physicality of the Premier League.”
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