Garang Kuol – Can we please just stop?

As I streamed Newcastle’s post-season win over Spurs today, I occasionally scrolled on social media to see what fans were saying about the game.

Sadly, one theme was the number of supporters taking a swipe at Garang Kuol; the young Aussie forward who came on for his Toon debut in front of 78,000 inside the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

It’s fair to say the 19-year-old struggled, although he wasn’t the only one in a pretty turgid second-half spectacle. He barely got a touch of the ball, slipped once as we looked to break and picked a poor pass on another occasion as he played on his own up top, but he also scored from the spot before Harrison Ashby sealed a 5-4 shootout win.

It was a shame to see the number of unnecessary comments on X (Twitter). Writing him off after a 20-minute cameo is really poor, especially when you consider his current circumstances.

The lad moved to the other side of the world at 18 years of age. He cost Newcastle very little, he’s had two tough loans spells at Hearts and Volendam, where his confidence has clearly been knocked. While this is a concern in itself, he’s only played 32 minutes of league football since the turn of the year after the manager that signed him was sacked. As a result, he’s come into today’s game having barely kicked a ball in 2024, coupled with the fact he was thrown in with a host of Toon talents he’s never played with in the closing stages of a post-season friendly where few players impressed. F

He’ll have to improve and it’s vital we find Kuol a suitable loan move this summer for the sake of his confidence and development, but I don’t know what some Newcastle fans expected from a teenage talent making his debut in front of 78,000 people at the end of a friendly full of fringe men and kids at the point he came on.

 

Source link : https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2024/05/22/garang-kuol-can-we-please-just-stop/

Author : Olly Hawkins

Publish date : 2024-05-22 13:39:42

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