Allan Saint-Maximin has vowed to run with the ball and dribble past defenders following his impressive first league start at St James’ Park on Sunday.
The 22-year-old carried the ball brilliantly during our 1-0 win over Man Utd over the weekend, with his pace, skill and ability to beat his man also being key in the build up to Matty Longstaff’s goal.
Here’s what he’s had to say during his chat with the Chronicle, revealing the ‘power’ Newcastle fans give him and the qualities he plans to bring to Steve Bruce’s side:
“They give me power and a good feeling.
“So I’ll try to run more and enjoy it with them. I’m happy when we win.
“Even if I don’t score or make an assist it’s OK for me. The fans like me to dribble. I’ll look to make good passes too.
“I was really happy because I tried to keep running and dribbling – that’s my job. My qualities are to run at people.
“Sometimes I do a lot of things in a game but I know what my qualities are.
“But to get a win is the most important thing, just before the break was an important time for me.”
“It’s been a really important win for us because we’d only won once at Tottenham before that.
“We lost badly at Leicester and everybody was really disappointed.
“We kept working during the week and now we have beaten Man United, a great club. We won but we must keep working.
“For now we can all be happy in the international break.”
The Frenchman then discussed his injury issues, with a reoccurring hamstring problem having restricted him to just two starts so far this season.
That said, he insists that he’s now feeling “much better” now, but suggests he must play regularly now to maintain his fitness levels:
“I feel much better now and I think you can still see that on the pitch.
“I need to play more now. I want to be playing every game, then I’ll feel much better.
“I’m happy because I played in the game at Spurs and we won, and now I started against Man United I won.”
The former Nice winger has entertained Newcastle fans off the pitch for weeks on end with his endearing sense of humour and frequent activity on social media, but it was brilliant to see him finally get the chance to deliver ON the pitch on Sunday.
We’ve struggled to cause teams problems in the final third this season and have looked incredibly ordinary in attacking areas at times, however his return gave us that spark we’d been missing.
Let’s hope he can stay fit and cause Chelsea real problems on the counter attack a week on Saturday!
