Bob Moncur: “When I watched him as a youngster he had a lot of promise and was probably in the ‘up and coming’ bracket.
“But I think it was very much a case of a young player getting ahead of himself. He started to believe his own publicity.
“I’m always a great believer in young players keeping their feet on the ground and not chasing the dollar, and I don’t think agents help their clients too much in that.
“But to let everything go at a club like Newcastle was a hasty move.
“No disrespect to Wigan, but they aren’t capable of getting crowds of 50,000, and that was a big thing he had in his favour.”