Christian Atsu has been talking about how much he has loved his time at Newcastle United.
The 29-year-old set to be out of contract at the end of June and getting in his goodbyes before the official announcement from the club, confirming the Ghanaian is one of those who hasn’t been offered a new deal and is leaving.
Christian Atsu taking to social media to declare: ‘Thank you my geordie staff, players, and fans, it’s been a pleasure!’
To be honest, I really find this Christian Atsu decision difficult to understand.
Not the decision of Newcastle United to let him go, nor the decision of the player to put out this goodbye message.
Instead, it is the fact that Christian Atsu has seen his Newcastle United contract out to the bitter end.
I have no malice towards him, it is more the fact that he perfectly represents so many modern football players.
So many players on so much money but not caring that what should be the prime years of their careers see them happy to play so little football.
They may say that they are unhappy not getting on the pitch BUT not that unhappy that they put playing actual football above the money side of it.
Christian Atsu has made only two league starts for Newcastle these past 21 months, none at all the last 17 months.
It goes further than that though.
In the last seven seasons, Christian Atsu has gone from the age of 22 to 29 starting only 59 league matches, you would have thought with that background of so little football in his career, not just the last year or two, the winger would be even more desperate for football.
It is not the modern way though.
There are of course even more extreme cases than Atsu’s but the outgoing Newcastle player’s is now typical for so many. He’s luck he made 59 league starts by the age of 22, or else he could have potentially ended up seeing out his career making less than 100 league starts.
As I say, nothing against Christian Atsu personally, it just seems strange to fans when players would rather sit on a contract earning say forty, fifty, sixty grand, rather than going elsewhere to get first team football and dropping to thirty, forty, fifty grand.
As kids we all dreamt of playing professional football and no doubt Christian Atsu was the same.
Yet that desperation to become a footballer and play football, then ironically now seems to diminish these days once they actually make it. Having proved they are good enough to be paid to do something they love, they end up losing that desperate desire to be actually playing the game.
Christian Atsu via his social media – 1 June 2021:
“When I arrived in Newcastle almost five years ago I was made to feel welcome from the start, by everyone at the club and especially by the fans.
“I grew to love the city and my young family feel very at home here.
“Sadly, the time has now come for me to leave the club, so I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who is part of the Newcastle Utd family.
“Thank you to the Toon Army fans, a lot of whom I’ve met around the city.
“I will never forget my time in the North East and for sure I will follow the results every week.
“Thank you my geordie staff, players and fans, it’s been a pleasure!”
from Matthew Robson (The Mag)