Player earning £45k-per-week suggests he wouldn’t call Newcastle teammates “friends” – report

Tommy Joyce

4 years ago

Tags: #nufc, Ayoze Perez, Benitez, bruce, Magpies, perez, Rafael Benitez, Steve Bruce, toon

Former Newcastle forward Ayoze Perez has said some words in the local press this week which suggest that he wouldn’t call his former teammates at the club as “friends”.

Within an interview with talkSPORT (via Leicestershire Live), the 26-year-old discussed the great atmosphere that is present at Leicester City, stating that he would describe his teammates as “friends”, suggesting that he didn’t do that while he was playing in Newcastle.

Perez, allegedly earning £45,000 a week while at the King Power as per Spotrac, joined Brendan Rodgers’ side in the summer window for a fee of £30m and has been a good addition for the side who currently are unexpectedly second in the division.

From 25 Premier League games this season, he has been able to chip in with 11 goal contributions – seven goals and four assists. With the club heading for Champions League qualification, it seems as if he made the right call in moving to Leicester, and he seems delighted with his choice, as you can tell from his words below.

He said: “It’s a very familiar group.

“Everybody is very close to each other.

“You can call each other friends. It’s something I haven’t had before and it’s great to have that feeling. As soon as I walked in, when I signed, I had that feeling. It’s important in a football club.

“Ben (Chilwell), Madders (James Maddison), Hamza (Choudhury), a lot of them, you feel you are very close to them. I felt it was a very warm welcome when I signed.”

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While this isn’t necessarily a massive dig at his former club, it does allude to the fact that there wasn’t the same kind of atmosphere at Newcastle as there is at Leicester.

Obviously, Perez was only a Newcastle player while under Rafael Benitez and not Steve Bruce, so perhaps things have improved since the former Sunderland boss has come in.

His words do not reflect particularly well against Benitez considering that he said he couldn’t even describe his teammates as “friends”.

He may have restored a bit of faith from fans by saying that he misses Newcastle as a city as it has more to do, but it must frustrate supporters when they hear that the club aren’t creating an environment where players all feel like friends.