When Newcastle signed Emmanuel Riviere, he created a bit of excitement after having a good season in the French Ligue 1 for Monaco. Newcastle had a degree of success in purchasing players from Ligue 1 and he was seen as another player that could make the step up.
When he arrived, he described his move to Newcastle as a dream, but unfortunately to him, he had stepped into a political battle at the club. Manager Alan Pardew was growing increasingly unhappy with the club’s buying policy. Chief Scout Graham Carr was the person responsible for making purchasing decisions and unfortunately for Riviere and the rest of those purchased by Carr, Alan Padrew was eager to show that he should have more say over transfers.
As this transfer battle ensued, Riviere found himself dropping down the pecking order and this poor start for the club seemed to set the tone for his remaining spell.
Despite numerous attempts by the managers that succeeded Pardew to revive his Newcastle career, what followed during his two seasons on Tyneside can only be described as a disappointment as the Ligue 1 buying policy starting to show cracks. The main problem looked to be that it created a divide in the dressing room with a big clique of French players and this is clearly one of the first things that Benitez looked to address as in the summer he shipped most of them out.
The only club interested in signing Riviere was Osasuna, but they would only take the forward on loan. With the forwards contract ending in 2017, this effectively was the end of the forwards career in Newcastle.
If he had any desire to stay at the club, he would simply have to produce wonders at Osasuna to show that Newcastle made a mistake and they should take him back.
So how has he done for Osasuna?
Well, unfortunately for him, his contribution has been non-existent so far. He made his debut in the 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Real Madrid in September and then played the two following matches before facing a month lay-off.
When he returned, he was brought off the bench in Osasuna’ss 2-1 defeat at home to Real Betis, lasting 30 minutes before being sent off after booting midfielder Darko Brasanac in the chest. And he has not been seen since.
So it probably goes without saying that with his contract running out, Newcastle won’t renew it. And if he is to find a club once he becomes a free agent, he needs to stop this poor run and start finding the back of the net in Spain.