On Wednesday, So Foot in France teased their readers with a snippet of an interview they had done with Newcastle United’s Allan Saint-Maximin.
This was ahead of the release of the their monthly magazine, which came out on Thursday morning, where the full chat can be found.
One of the quotes they used from it was the Newcastle forward claiming he had ‘nothing to envy to Sadio Mané’, hinting that if he had team-mates like the one the Senegalese star has, he would be able to have seasons with 10 or 15 assists.
The quotes didn’t necessarily go down well with some of the St James’ Park faithful, with a few articles published hinting the Frenchman had lacked respect to his current teammates.
We’ve had a look through the full interview, and while it’s fair to say the lines in the teaser were choice picked, the essence of what Saint-Maximin said is still there.
If you are curious about what the Newcastle star had to say, please read below, but first, we’ll add a bit of context.
At this point, So Foot and Saint-Maximin have just talked about the fact the winger is often top or near the top of the table when it comes to successful dribbles, something the player is proud about and has always been able to do.
Then comes the rest, as the magazine told him he was clearly ‘finding it difficult to convert this status of best dribbler into goals or assists when that’s really the aim of football’.
“Therefore, that’s why the changes that are going to take place at Newcastle thanks to them being bought will be beneficial for me. I take Bruno Guimaraes as an example. Frankly, he’s a player who is going to take us up a few levels. The ability to delegate responsibility in the offensive part of the game is going to help me.
“I’ll give you an example: with my qualities, if you were to put me in the France national team with a Benzema or an Mbappé, I wouldn’t need to do much to better my stats, to be frank. Going past someone with a dribble isn’t something very difficult for me.
“What is is everything that comes afterwards, but I know that once surrounded by high level players, I’ll have better statistics, because when when you do a key pass, as we say here, the fact that it ends in a goal or not isn’t up to you.
“I give a lot of key passes. Take Liverpool against United (4-0): when you see Mané’s goal, at the start of it, there’s a normal cross from Luis Diaz… Except that at the end of it, there’s a Sadio Mané who can shoot with his left foot, his right foot and put that into the net…
“In the end, when you look at the stats, it’s an assist for Diaz. The day when I’ll have a player capable of finishing moves, I will have seasons with 10-15 assists, and I will change dimension in the mind of people.
“Of course, you look better in a team that plays well than in a team at the bottom of the table, that’s completely normal. Any player who plays at Barcelona will be looked at in a better light than if he played at Clermont-Ferrand…
“The very good example right now is Nkunku. No one would have said at the start of the season that he was going to get 30 goals and 18 assists. He’s at a club where he feels good, well surrounded, in a league that favours his attributes… You see the result!
“That’s what Newcastle want to do with me. In the years to come, I won’t be the same player I am now, because the club will do everything to put me in the best possible conditions.”
