Thumbs up as Muto cleared for Magpies
MAGPIES MAKE MUTO FIRST JAPANESE PLAYER IN CLUB HISTORY AFTER SEALING £9.5M DEAL
NEWCASTLE United have completed the signing of Yoshinori Muto after the Japanese international was granted a work permit.
The move sees Muto sign a fouryear contract after arriving from German club Mainz 05.
He is the club’s fifth summer signing after Martin Dubrvaka, Ki Sungyueng and Fabian Schar and the loan capture of Kenedy.
After completing the move Muto said: “I am very happy to be a player for Newcastle United.
“I am really looking forward to playing in front of the fans.
“As the first Japanese Newcastle United player I am honoured to be a player for such a big club.
“I hope to achieve good results – that is what I am here to do. I would like to perform well and leave my name in Newcastle’s history.”
Rafa Benitez is also delighted with his arrival and added: “I am really pleased to have Yoshinori with us. We were following him for a while.
“Hopefully he can bring us his energy and workrate and help the team to improve for the new season.”
The Premier League opener against Tottenham will be the Japanese forward’s first opportunity to play for the Magpies.
A club statement confirmed: “Muto will not be available to make his debut for Newcastle against FC Augsburg on Saturday while he completes the formalities of the visa process.”
YOSHINORI Muto will discover fast that playing up front for Newcastle United comes with greater expectations than at former club Mainz.
A quick look round St James’s Park will make that clear to the Japan international. The capacity is 18,000 bigger than the Opel Arena, Muto’s home for the past three years.
He has proved, however, playing in front of larger crowds did not overawe him, in Germany’s biggest stadium no less.
At Borussia Dortmund’s imposing Signal Iduna Park, he scored for Mainz in each of the past two seasons in front of 80,000.
When doing so during a 2-1 win in May, it ensured both Mainz’s first win there and, more importantly, their Bundesliga status after a long relegation battle.
Muto, though, did not celebrate like the rest of his team-mates who kicked back with a beer in the dressing room.
They had earned it, having been the fourth best team in the division over the past six games.
Muto (pictured below) went off to doping control, where one member of staff came to find him and offer a beer. He declined.
It came down to Muto not being sure of his place in the Japan squad ahead of the World Cup, according to Germanybased journalist and fellow countryman Yuhei Yamaguchi.
Keeping in the very best shape was his priority.
After the final game of the season, Muto trained instead of going on holiday - a good representation of how stoic a professional he is in Yamaguchi’s eyes.
His Bundesliga goal tally of 20 goals in 66 games for Mainz may look nothing more than solid.
All but one of them were inside the box and that due to a goalkeeping error. Yet he deserves credit for scoring more headers than you would think for somebody who is 5ft 10 in.
His overall influence going forward should not be underestimated either.
Muto’s figure of 10 assists in his time at Mainz puts his at a very respectable 30 in 66 games, meaning he was averaging nearly a goal or an assist in every other game.
That is in a Mainz team which has battled relegation up until the penultimate game of the season for the past two years.
Georg Holzner has seen that up close as Mainz’s correspondent for revered German football magazine ‘Kicker.’ He praises Muto as “not somebody who spurns loads of chances. He is a good striker in that way but equally it should not be expected he is going to reinvent the wheel at Newcastle.” On the other hand, he says: “There have been occasions during the season where you have sat in the stands and wondered how much have we seen of Muto today? He is a player who seems to rise more to the big occasion.” Scoring goals in the crunch games to keep Mainz up tallies with that but Holzner also refers to Muto as having mostly worked as their “first defender.” That is testament to how hard he has had to work – both to sometimes carve out chances for himself but also to make sure he is harrying down opponents when Mainz do not have the ball. His first season triggered what has been Muto’s biggest issue – injuries. A knee ligament problem ruled him out for almost the entire second half of the campaign. There have been others since, not quite as lengthy but still enough to add up to nearly season’s worth of games missed – most telling by the fact he started just two league games in 2016. You could argue, though, that it just makes Muto’s contributions that bit more impressive. He has not been able to break into double figures for a Bundesliga season, even if his stated aim before the last campaign was to do just that. Coming here, Muto will be following in the footsteps of fellow countryman Shinji Okazaki, who also used Mainz as his stepping-stone before moving to the Premier League with Leicester City. Japan’s answer to Alan Shearer he isn’t - but Muto is a player who will work hard for the team. So long as the chances are there for him he has the ability to break through into double figures for goals in a season – and that might be enough to fulfil expectations too.
Newcastle United have finally completed the £9.5million signing of Japanese international forward Yoshinori Muto from German club Mainz. German football expert ARCHIE RHIND-TUTT writes about what Magpies fans can expect Muto is a good striker but it should not be expected he is going to reinvent the wheel at Newcastle Georg Holzner