Newcastle United midfielder Isaac Hayden has hailed his Toon teammate Allan Saint-Maximin, and insisted there isn’t one player in the Premier League that matches him for raw ability.
The French winger is a huge player for the Magpies, and will be hoping to rediscover his form soon.
Saint-Maximin netted a fine goal against Manchester United in the final game of 2021.
Before that though, he had gone six games without scoring. And before his strike against Brentford, he had again gone six games with a goal.
Toon fans will be desperate for him to start finding the back of the net with a bit more regularity in the second half of the season.
Perhaps with the right new additions, there will be a decent chance of that.
But there is no doubting Saint-Maximin’s potential to do something special at any given moment.
And Hayden certainly knows it.
He said on the Beautiful Game podcast: “Honestly I’m telling you, I’ve never seen anything like it before.
“I’m being deadly serious. There’s not one player in the Premier League who’s got the raw ability he has. I’m not saying he’s the best player in the Premier League, but for raw, genetical ability, he’s frightening.
Hayden also put ASM in a bracket with his ‘outrageous’ former teammate at Arsenal Santi Cazorla.
He said: “Talent-wise, natural ability, I would probably say it’s between him and Santi Cazorla as the best two players I’ve trained and played with for natural ability.
Allan Saint-Maximin needs to find consistency for Newcastle now
Hayden is not the first to rave about Saint-Maximin and he won’t be the last.
We all know the former Nice star is capable of doing special things on a football pitch.
He just needs to find that consistency for for Newcastle, who desperately need their big names to come in clutch amid a relegation battle.
He needs to become consistent, like Cazorla always was at Arsenal, and lead the Magpies to safety.
Doing so will earn him genuine hero status, if he doesn’t already have it, at St. James’ Park.
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