Yoane Wissa reveals Joe Willock surprise since £55m move to Newcastle

Yoane Wissa's first year at Newcastle United hasn't exactly been the dream he envisioned when he went on strike at Brentford last year to force his move through.

Between being injured for almost five months and Newcastle's manic fixture schedule, combined with the fact that Wissa signed on deadline day after the season was already underway, the 29-year-old has not had much time on the training pitch with his new teammates.

Indeed, it wasn't until the start of April, after the international break, that he actually trained with the majority of his colleagues in proper Eddie Howe training sessions.

The striker has admitted in an interview with Joel Beya TV on YouTube that since Newcastle were knocked out of the Champions League and have reverted to playing just one game a week, the training intensity has stepped up massively.

Yoane Wissa admits he was wrong about Joe Willock

When talking about training, Wissa was asked which Newcastle United player impressed him the most in training after he joined.

To many people’s surprise, Wissa admitted that it was Joe Willock, because of what he perceived him to be like before he saw him train.

"It's really weird because, as I said, we are playing every three days, so I could not train with everyone. So when I was training with everyone, it was just like chill., you know? But the one who I was training a lot, it was who surprised me the most, it was Joe Willock. You know, even he wasn't playing, I think in training he was always the best. 

"But from outside, as I said to him, he looked so arrogant. You know, and he looked like so lazy, and he knows why I'm saying this. And I told him, but to see him working that hard and being so good in training, I said to him, 'Sorry.'

“That's what I said, like you can't have an image of someone if you don't know him, you will still think about him, but when I joined, I've been training with him, and I said to him 'I've got the image about you, but it's wrong. It's really wrong, and I'm saying sorry to him.'"

Wissa is looking better in training lately

Wissa would go on to praise Bruno Guimaraes, too, as you'd expect, but it was surprising that there was no mention of Jacob Murphy, as he has often been the one the coaches and even Eddie Howe have brought up when asked about the hardest workers in training.

It has recently been reported that Wissa is looking much sharper in training these days after the full sessions have returned, and he even scored in a behind-closed-doors game recently.

Hopefully, we'll start to see more from him in the last four games, and he can give us a better look at what we paid £55 million for and, more importantly, whether we should stick or twist in the summer.