William Osula was delighted to see Anthony Elanga get off the mark for Newcastle United on Sunday.
There has not been much to shout about at Newcastle United this summer, Elanga’s arrival aside.
Newcastle paid £55million to sign Elanga from Nottingham Forest, ending a long-running pursuit of the player.
The Sweden international scored his first goal for the club during Sunday’s pre-season friendly defeat to Arsenal.
It was a scrappy finish from Elanga but he will not care. He was pleased, alongside one of his best friends in football in Osula.
Will Osula celebrates Anthony Elanga’s first goal for Newcastle United
After the game, Elanga took to social media platform Instagram to post a photo of him celebrating the goal.
Osula, who first met Elanga while training together at Manchester United at youth level, responded with: “Love it u my boy proud.”
How Anthony Elanga played for Newcastle United vs Arsenal
Pre-season performances are not always indicative of what’s to come.
Still, Newcastle haven’t made many signings in two years now, so how Elanga develops will be of particular interest to supporters.
In hot and humid conditions, Elanga completed his only attempted dribble and found the mark with seven of his nine attempted passes (78%).
| Arsenal vs Newcastle United statistics | Anthony Elanga |
| Goals | 1 |
| Shots blocked | 1 |
| Successful dribbles | 1 |
| Touches | 17 |
| Ground duels won | 3/4 |
| Possession lost | 4 |
He won three of his four ground duels and was robbed of possession four times.
There’s not a huge amount of sample size yet but there’s little doubt he makes the Newcastle attack stronger. Jacob Murphy was brilliant last season, but to expect him to be quite that good again feels like a risk.
It was good to see Elanga score on his first start. Hopefully, there will be much more to come next season.
In an ideal world, he’d be operating alongside Sweden international teammate Alexander Isak.
Still, with star forward Isak asking to leave Newcastle this summer, that currently looks unlikely to happen.
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