12 WTF Moments In Newcastle's Disastrous 14/15 Season
6. The Fall And Rise Of Jonas Gutierrez
With the soul of the club apparently hanging flayed from the St James Park battlements, it was almost unthinkable that there would be any room for fairy tales at Newcastle United.
But perhaps we should have had more faith in the resilience and the insistence of Jonas Gutierrez, a mostly unspectacular workhorse of a player who charmed more with his effort than with flashes of brilliance.
Thrown on the scrapheap unthinkably after a grim cancer diagnosis, Gutierrez could have been forgiven for thinking his time at Newcastle was well and truly done. After giving some close to the knuckle interviews about his treatment by the club, that seemed even more likely, but somehow the club made the right decision and stood by the Argentinian.
That faith was repaid in a number of eye-catching (but not quite match-changing) performances towards the end of the season and then in one astonishing moment against West Ham. Yes the stage was perfectly set for him to be the match-winner, but nobody could have thought for one moment that the less than prolific wideman would prove to be the quite so tangibly.