Cruyff favourite Vertonghen should be Newcastle United’s top defensive target.
Posted on January 27th, 2012 | 34 Comments |
At a potential cost that will almost certainly be over £10 million, along with the abilty to command a Coloccini sized salary package he should be really. However, despite another thing being almost certain, that he will also be pursued by other clubs (most with more “clout” than Newcastle United too), he’s still the one that Alan Pardew should really push the boat out for. After taking my advice from last year telling him to stop messing around with forwards such as Modibo Maiga and buy Papiss Cisse instead, and also to stop being silly and put Hatem Ben Arfa back on the flank, hopefully the Silver Supremo will heed my sage advice once more!
Cultured, powerful, versatile, attacking…
Jan Vertonghen first came on to my radar quite some time ago when Johan Cruyff named him as his favourite Ajax player in the current squad. When the greatest Dutch master of them all says something like that I tend to listen, and look. After watching a few Ajax games I could see why.
A remarkably versatile left footer, he has the abilty to play left back, centre back and defensive midfield. He is also highly cultured for a defender in both senses of the word – He actually has a very canny library at home and I’m sure you can’t say that about many footballers! But I digress.
Getting back to the football sense of the word, he is remarkably “cultured” technically for a defender. Primarily a left footer, he’s remarkably good on the ball with excellent passing abilty, excellent positional sense and tackling, a great capacity to read the game and is good in the air. He also has set piece abilty with the odd goal too. He’s scored 26 goals in his 221 game club career with Ajax (including a 20 game loan spell with Waalwijk), as well as 2 goals in his 35 caps with the Belgian national side. As well as being cultured he is also as strong as you would expect a centre back to be and at around 6’3″, the Belgian Beckenbauer is indeed a fair sized unit. Another Dutch legend and his current manager at Ajax, Frank de Boer, said of Vertonghen:
“He is perhaps the best player in the league (Dutch Eredivisie) at the moment. With his power, passing, positional sense, pace and ability to score goals, there’s no one better.”
Negatives?
Looking hard for a more negative side, for better or worse, he is very attacking for someone who plays primarily as a centre back and can spend quite alot of time up the pitch scoring goals and such. I have also heard from one or two sources that he can be prone to occaisional lapses in concentration. Watching him a few times, I certainly didn’t see a Titus Bramble but some people who have seen far more of him than I have may know more.
Current situation?
On his current situation, Vertonghen himself has expressed exasperation in the past at seemingly constant questions about whether he will be moving to another club, however more recently he has said on his situation at Ajax, where his current contract expires in the summer of 2013:
“There is talk of a contract extension, but not much has been said.”
“Perhaps Ajax will find it to be a good thing when I leave, I don’t know.
“But I think that in the future I could have a very good transfer.”
At around the same time (a few days ago) his manager, the above mentioned Frank de Boer told the Dutch “Eredivisie Live” of a potential move for the player:
“We know that his contract expires in 2013. So it’s either renew or relocate to a good foreign club, where Ajax would also benefit from a transfer fee.”
“We already told Jan last year in Turkey that we are keen to hold on to him. We will open talks early in March to discuss a new deal.”
Arsenal.
Hmm, not much there then except from De Boer’s quotes above, it seems that if or when they do sell, it will almost certainly be in the Summer rather than in the next few days. If / when they do sell, if Newcastle United are willing to throw their hat into the ring, they will face stiff competition from some bigger teams with bigger budgets and European competition to offer so Derek Llambias’ usual crude “bullyboy” tactics and attempts to unsettle the player will not work. Although several top clubs have reportedly expressed an interest in the player the favourites would seem to be Arsenal, and Vertonghen himself has spoken of a potential move to the Gunners as far back as July 2010. Speaking on the possibilty of rejoining with his ex Ajax and also his Belgian international teammate, Thomas “Verminator” Vermaelen, a player with whom Vertonghen shares some characteristics, the defender said:
“I heard they made an enquiry along with a few other clubs. I read something in the newspapers.
“I have always said to myself I want one more year at Ajax, hopefully become a champion and then move.
“I am ambitious. I want to play in the Premier League. The Premier League is my favourite competition but I need one more year before I am ready. I always said I don’t want to move this year so the clubs never came to me.
“They always went to Ajax and the club always said they didn’t want to sell me so I will stay for another year.”
On the possibilty of joining his friend the Verminator he continued:
“We have never played together in central defence, perhaps because we are both left-footed, either for Ajax or the national team.
“When he was at Ajax we were always playing together in the team but sometimes I played left-back and he played centre-back and sometimes the other way around.
“I lost a friend when he went to Arsenal but for my career it was good. We get on really well. I speak to him sometimes a few times a week.
“I see him with the national team and he sometimes comes back to Amsterdam for a few days when he is free and we hang out together.
“He is one of my best friends and I’m very happy he has been such a success at Arsenal. He tells me really good things about Arsenal and living in London.”
Of course though, this does not mean that if he does make a move it will be to Arsenal, and now, along with the north London club, Newcastle are seen by some as the joint front runners for his signature. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported at the end of last year that Newcastle United had been in touch about the player, a story which was repeated in several organs of the UK media. However it should be remebered that absolute piffle in the media isn’t solely a UK phenomenon so we’ll see.
From everything I’ve seen of him though, he’s one hell of a defender and Newcastle United should get in there, despite the competition.
Jan Vertonghen video action.
Top ten Vertonghen goals for Ajax – not bad for a defender!
Jan Vertonghen: The good, the bad and the ugly.
Scoring goals again, and occaisionally trotting back to do the odd bit of defending.
Jan Vertonghen – Ajax talent of the year. Once again, apologies for the soundtrack!
Best of Jan Vertonghen.
Jan Vertonghen – The Leader.
Third Star Heroes: Jan Vertonghen.
Of course, this goal was a pass back to the opposition’s (SC Cambuur) goalkeeper while the Ajax gadgie was hurt, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway! As you can see, Ajax very sportingly let Cambuur have one back.
Oops! I forgot to put this one in when I first published this piece. This is Vertonghen in an Ajax vs AZ Alkmaar game.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
10 mill… howay man… there’s nee way ashley would cough up up to 20 mill in one transfer window on 2 players.
he’s class though.