Former Newcastle United youngster Ivan Toney has no ill will towards the club.
Toney, who had several loan spells away from Newcastle as a youngster, never got a chance to show his quality at St. James' Park.
He eventually resurrected his career and is a Premier League star at Brentford.
Newcastle are a great club, they have had some great players and are doing very well at the moment," said Toney, per Chronicle Live.
But I feel like I didn't really have a chance in the first team to prove if I was good enough.
"I feel personally, anyway. At the time Newcastle were fighting to stay in the Premier League, when Rafa Benitez first came in, so it was kind of understandable they wanted these players to keep them up.
You can't put so much responsibility on young players to keep you up, but I feel like the following season, it was like could I get a sniff and then he brought his own players in and did his own kind of thing, which is just football."