Ian Wright has been discussing one of his former teammates who turned into a Premier League star after a move to Newcastle.
Newcastle had a number of stars back in the 1990s when they enjoyed arguably their greatest era in the last 30 years under the guidance of Kevin Keegan.
Speaking on the Stick To Football podcast, Wright claimed that people had written off Andy Cole completely at Arsenal before he made the move to Newcastle in 1993.
Wright says Newcastle created ‘a monster’
Cole’s career didn’t exactly start out how you would expect knowing what we all know now about him as he struggled to break through at Arsenal after being sent out on loan at Fulham and Bristol City.
Wright claimed that people at Arsenal had been slating Cole, suggesting that he would never go on to score more than 12 goals in a season – but how wrong they were.
After his loans spells, he was the permanently shipped out to Bristol where he started to pick up a little bit of form and was finally picked up by Keegan at Newcastle who clearly saw something special in him.
Of course, we all know the success he found at St James’ Park netting 34 Premier League goals in his first season with the club, and it would then spark a big move to Manchester United, and the rest was history.
On Cole at Newcastle, Wright said: “When I got there he went on loan to Fulham and Bristol and then he came back and people would say at Arsenal that he probably won’t score more than 12 goals a season the way he was and the way he played.
“To be fair to him when he was training, Andy Cole is how he is. But something clicked at Bristol and then you get him to Newcastle with Beardsley and all that lot and he turned into a monster, he went supernova. It comes down to what you were saying about people writing people off at that age.”
Newcastle could really do with another iconic striker right now
Newcastle already have a very talented attacker in Alexander Isak, and the hope is that he will become more of an icon in the North East than Cole.
What would have been a brilliant sight is to see Cole link up with Alan Shearer at Newcastle with both of them in their primes, but the legendary striker was just a year too late arriving from Blackburn.
With Isak, however, Newcastle have the chance to form something really special if they look to add to their attacking ranks this summer and bring in another potentially top talent.
Callum Wilson has been a reliable goalscorer, but his injury record has really prevented him from writing his name in Newcastle folklore, though Isak still has that chance in the next few years.
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