In the summer, Newcastle United fought off interest from Barcelona to sign Spanish wonderkid Antonio Cordero.
It felt like quite the coup to beat Barcelona to the signing of a young Spanish player tipped for greatness, and suggested that Newcastle were perhaps starting to get their pitch right to young players after missing out on so many talented prospects to Premier League rivals.
A loan move seemed inevitable for the 19-year-old with initial talks suggesting he’d remain at Malaga for another season, but that deal couldn’t be agreed upon. Instead, he went out on loan to KVC Westerlo in Belgium, where he struggled to get game time.
Newcastle cancelled that arrangement, and Cordero returned to Spain in January to play for Cadiz, where he has made 11 appearances without a goal or assist to his name.
Cordero faced his old club, Malaga, recently, and it seems that there’s no love lost there as Málaga Hoy (via Sport Witness) claims that he is ‘far from justifying the hype’.
That hype was created when he was on the books at Malaga, who clearly haven’t taken his exit very well, especially as they missed out on picking up a fee from Newcastle.
While it’s easy to read comments from a Malaga-based publication as bitterness, the fact that Cordero has no goals or assists for Cadiz does suggest things aren’t going as well as Newcastle would like.
Malaga Hoy does claim that there’s still time for Cordero to turn things around before the end of the season, and of course, that is true, but it sounds as though Newcastle will be looking to arrange another loan away for the Spanish Under-21 star next season.
If he’s not able to show any progressions in La Liga 2, he’s clearly way off the standard required to have an effect in the Premier League.
We just hope that we find a suitable club for him next season, playing at a higher level with guaranteed game time, so we can get a good feel for his actual level. He may be one of those players who rises to a challenge. Perhaps we’ll get a look at him in pre-season too as Eddie Howe usually likes to take a look at his more promising youngsters ahead of a new season.