Achraf Lazaar and Newcastle United is perhaps one of the oddest relationships we’ve seen in football for a long time.
Clearly unwanted by all managers at St James’ Park, including the one who brought him over from US Palermo (Rafa Benítez), the Morocco international has managed a whole 10 appearances in over three years.
Either sat with the reserves or out on loan, the 27-year-old has needed a permanent exit for a while now, yet it’s never come, and another temporary one was arranged in the summer, this time to Cosenza Calcio in Serie B.
It might be a massive downgrade, but it’s something he says he needed to do when giving an interview to TuttoMercatoWeb.
He said: “Staying at Newcastle would have been like finishing my football career. I would have only been thinking of money, and my parents taught me that a career comes before money. Football is my life. I want to come back as big as I was before going to Newcastle.
“My agent De Fanti as well as my mental coach Civitarese were very close to me in a delicate period and together we chose Cosenza. I was one of the leaders at Palermo and ended up on the bench at Newcastle: it’s not easy, especially mentally. Last year I played six months at Sheffield (Wednesday), I wanted to go back to Italy, at home, so I chose Cosenza”.
The player then went on to explain why things didn’t work out at Newcastle, claiming that ‘as long as there was Benítez, it was a technical choice’.
He has no regrets about going to England, since he wanted to try football here ‘at all costs’ to prove his qualities, a ‘child’s dream’, but it simply ‘didn’t go well’.
As for whether or not he feels the need to come back to the Premier League for revenge, the answer is simply no.
He continued: “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone in England. I want to be the best for myself. I want to stay in Italy. Italy raised me, made me feel important. The English experience made me become a man”.
