The old saying goes that ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try , try again’. Florian Thauvin was definitely a case of the saying being put into action. Signed from Marseille for £15m in August of 2015, Thauvin was finally joining Newcastle after what felt like years of us trailing him.
From memory, I think we’d tried to sign him from Bastia two years previous, but the player wasn’t keen on the move. Then, when he joined Lille, we were still trying for his signature. Two years later, we finally got our man. He’d forced a move to Marseille, having been in dispute with Lille about a contract and he’d publicly rejected our advances at that time too. We should have know better and just walked away because after just 5 unhappy months on Tyneside, Thauvin was heading back to Marseille on a loan which would then be extended into the next season before being made permanent in a £9.8m move a few months later.
Thauvin made his debut from the substitute’s bench in an away game at Old Trafford. And he came agonisingly close to making himself an instant hero, sliding in at the back post, but being inches away from getting on the end of a cross that flashed across the face of goal. Who knows if connecting with it and scoring might have made Thauvin’s time at Newcastle an entirely different story?
Florian made his first start for the club a few days later in a League Cup tie at home to Northampton. And it was quite the performance as he scored a spectacular, acrobatic goal, getting on the end of a cross at the Leazes end, before bagging three assists. Two of those assists came from fantastic, Lauren Robert style free kick deliveries and the other from a cute pass to play in the overlapping Darryl Janmaat at the Gallowgate.
The future looked bright, but sadly, that was the highlight for Thauvin at Newcastle. He seemingly hadn’t really wanted to join and his form showed that. In all, he made just 16 appearances and scored just the one goal. He never looked comfortable on Tyneside and in the end the club cut their losses and moved him on. He was a player with a wand of a left foot, a bit of pace and the ability to glide past full backs, but it just never looked like working out at Newcastle. The kind of player we love as Newcastle fans; a flair player and a difference maker…just one that never managed to make a difference!
The other abiding memory of Florian comes from the fact that he turned up for a home game against wearing a tuxedo, something that he was widely criticised for. Personally, I kind of liked his style, but each to their own I suppose! The fact was, he joined a struggling team under one of the worst managers in NUFC’s modern history – Steve McClaren. The poor lad was doomed from the start.
Having left Tyneside, Thauvin would go on to show exactly what a talent he was, making a total of 200 appearances for Marseille, scoring 71 goals. Then, in 2018 he became a World Cup winner with France! He was also part of the French Olympic squad in 2020.
Having left Marseille to join Mexican side Tigres in 2021, Florian spent almost two seasons there before joining Udinese in 2022, where he still plays. Overall he has played over 450 career games, scoring 119 goals, but just the one for us!
Clearly, a talented player who could have been so much more on Tyneside. Definitely one that got away, but also maybe a case of Newcastle needing to take more notice of repeated knock backs, I suppose. Thankfully, a lesson we just about seemed to have learned some years later when we were persuing a certain Hugo Ekitike!
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