Jamie Carragher caused quite the storm on Thursday with his comments about Newcastle United possibly replacing Sandro Tonali with Ruben Neves.
Sandro Tonali is currently serving a ban until August 2024 for betting, leading to Newcastle searching for a replacement.
One player who has been linked is Ruben Neves, who plays for Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia. Like Newcastle, they are owned by PIF, which led to complaints from the Magpies’ rivals.
There was even a Premier League vote to temporarily ban clubs from loaning players from a club with the same owner, but it did not pass. That means Newcastle are free to sign Neves on loan in January – if they want to. However, it has been suggested that might not even be the case.
What Jamie Carragher said about Newcastle and Sandro Tonali
But the thought of Newcastle just taking Neves to replace Tonali has angered former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher. He stated that the Magpies should have to pay for their mistake after failing to do proper due diligence before they bought the 23-year-old from AC Milan.
His comments angered a lot of Toon fans, as they went viral on social media.
Now Carragher has spoke out again, as he responds to a post on X about his comments from Newcastle fan account ‘The Magpie Channel’.
Carragher speaks out again after controversial Newcastle comment
They described Carragher’s comments as a ‘ridiculous take‘, and now the Sky Sports pundit has responded via his official X account.
“Clubs never tire of telling us how much they look into the background of potential signings and how much attention to detail goes into it,” he wrote.
“So if something like this happens they can’t complain if people then question it.
“Punished is the wrong term, but if a team has made a mistake with a player, they shouldn’t then be allowed to sign a player on loan (Neves) from a club that they have links with. That’s not right, hence why there was a PL vote on it, and was passed by clubs who are linked up with other clubs.”
Newcastle won’t be getting a favour from Al Hilal anyway
The problem is, Carragher worded his initial point in a poor way, and that has led to the controversy.
I don’t think he meant Newcastle should actually be punished. Rather, it is not fair that they are given an easy solution to the issue by basically being given a player by another one of their owners’ clubs.
That is understandable to a certain extent, but the issue lies when another Premier League club tries to sign Neves. So it would be fair for Arsenal to loan him due to their injury issues, but not Newcastle.
The whole argument is futile anyway, as the Magpies are not going to be borrowing Ruben Neves. If they really wanted him, they would have got him in the summer.
Instead, they went for Tonali, which has massively backfired. But how were Newcastle to know?
Carragher can talk all he likes about the club not doing proper due diligence, but that is easy to say in hindsight. If his former club AC Milan did not know and Tonali did not say anything, there is no way Newcastle could have found out.
It is simply an unfortunate situation, and one that Newcastle United will continue to support Sandro Tonali throughout.
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