Following his superb display in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Leicester, Paul Merson has been full of praise for Kenedy – the Chelsea loanee he childishly slated just 24 hours after he made the move to Tyneside in January.
The infamous pundit has a habit of speaking before he thinks, and a classic example was his below appearance on Sky Sports at the start of the year.
After watching him play for Conte’s side in a cup win over Norwich (back in January), he gave the following assessment of the Brazilian’s performance, choosing to mock his tattoos and suggest a lack of effort in training rather than praise what was actually a man of the match performance from the 22-year-old:
Paul Merson hits the nail on the head about Kenedy. #nufc pic.twitter.com/fO49A00SLY
— NG (@NewcastleGoals) March 12, 2018
A few months on and not only has he scored twice, assisted three, showed consistent quality and helped us to safety, but he’s now being courted by the likes of Bayern Munich and PSG according to Sky Sports.
Needless to say, Merson’s quickly changed his tune, now suggesting that ‘he’s been the difference’ for NUFC since arriving in January.
He suggests he didn’t see it coming, but we could’ve guessed that. After all, we’d be second bottom of the league if his predictions for us rang true this season!
“I didn’t see the Kenedy one. I’d seen Kenedy about a week before playing in the cup at Chelsea against Norwich and he wasn’t very good. He’s been absolutely outstanding. For me, he’s been the difference,”
“The goalkeeper’s been great, but to give them that x-factor on the pitch, he has given them that x-factor. His goals he’s scored, his assists. The goal he sets up last Saturday is phenomenal. People look at it and go, ‘oh, that’s a three yard pass, anybody can do that’. No, it’s the way he controlled it, he took his time, he could’ve easily slashed at the ball and put it over the bar or at the keeper, he just plays a little three yard ball to Perez. He’s been absolutely outstanding.”
Paul Merson – the gift that keeps on giving. What an awful ‘pundit’ that man is.
