Douglas and Pieters – any truth in the rumours?
Posted on April 4th, 2012 | 22 Comments |
The Chronicle – and other elements of the press – have been linking us with FC Twente’s Douglas Franco Teixeira recently.
The 6ft 4in 24-year old central defender has apparently told FC Twente boss Steve McClaren that he wants to leave at the end of the season and the Premier League is his destination of choice.
Apparently a ‘source’ at FC Twente said:
“It’s not a case of if Douglas wants to play in the Premier League – it’s simply when. He’s told the manager he wants to go.
“Steve McClaren also has a new defender lined up to replace him in the summer and appreciates that Douglas wants to move on.”
Anyway, on the back of this report I thought I’d do some digging around in the Dutch press to see if I could find some sort of indication that Newcastle is indeed in the running.
Well first of all it does seem that McLaren has sorted out a replacement by signing Danish international Andreas Bjelland from FC Nordsjælland, who will join FC Twente from next season onwards. FC Twente already made an announcement to that effect, saying:
“In signing Andreas Bjelland FC Twente have looked Towards the Future. We’ve currently got Douglas, Wisgerhof and Bengtsson at the back and they’re very experienced defenders and we’d like to have cover for all their positions.”
But as far as I can gather beyond that, the Dutch press is simply reporting rumours it has taken from the British press. That’s not to say it won’t happen of course: he’s the sort of age we look to recruit players at and there’s no doubt we need a new central defender. According to ‘Transfermarkt’ he’s valued at just shy of £8m, which might be just on the limit of the sort of money Ashley would pay for defender.
The situation with Erik Pieters is a bit different because we know for certain we were at least interested in him once as we made a bid for him, but we have since signed Davide Santon in the left-back position and with both Jonas and Ryan Taylor also reasonably proficient in that position you’d have to question whether we still want Pieters or not. The Mirror has reported that we do indeed still want him and suggests that we’ll make a bid in the summer but, well, we know what the press is like with this sort of thing.
Once again the Dutch press seem to be basing their Pieters-related rumours on what the British press say.
The Dutch press are however reporting the Demba Ba will “almost certainly” play his football for Paris Saint-Germain next season, although they don’t back that up with any quotes or other facts that might act as confirmation.
Given the rise of these ‘pre-contract agreements’ recently it is quite possible to be reasonably sure we’ll get a certain player even before the transfer window opens but I can find no such evidence of such agreements in relation to Douglas of Erik Pieters. If I had to guess I’d say we’re more likely to be interested in Douglas that Pieters simply because we’ve now got Santon, although I do get the impression that Pardew hasn’t yet fully made his mind up about Santon.
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
what IS going on with Santon? Can you write an article about this please?
I thought he was doing so well a few weeks ago when he was getting his game. He was gradually improving with every game until he was taking off at Arsenal. Seems like Pardew has knocked his confidence at a crucial time in his career.