Siem De Jong...

Much better than what we've got. I'm interested to see how much we paid for him. Excited to see some business on the first day of the window!

 

Only has 12 months left on his contract with Ajax so probably not a great deal. £4m-£5m?

 

Six year contract........poor **** will be on loan to St Mirren in January.

 

Last season he was piss poor and he had one year on his contract. So basically a cheap deal. His skills. Great technique with passing and long shots. But most of all, he is versatile. He can play AS DM/CM/AM/RM/RW/CF and ST. He is strong, great stamina and endurance. Pace and agility are okay but nothing special. Most of his goals though came from corners and free kicks that were flicked into the box as a cross. His heading and positioning are superb which is why he scores a lot of goals as a midfielder. But that is not the main reason of his top notch stat of one in three goals per game. He played most of his time at Ajax as a ST when Suarez was sold to Liverpool. Sightorsson was injured for one and a half years and during those intervals, he had to step up as the target man.

So with Siem de Jong you get a versatile midfielder, but he is extremely mature from a very young age. Was one of the youngest team captains ever at Ajax at age 23 and he is the one that usually carried the team when things looked sour. His mentality and work rate are fantastic. He never lets his head down, never quits.

There is a big but though. He hasn't played much last season and when he did, he never looked like his usual self. Injury after injury and bad performances followed after. It's a cheap deal for Newcastle United and looking at the form of De Jong of last season, I would tag this transfer very risky.

 

He could be **** but I'm going to get SEGA on the back of my jersey if we sign him as it will look cool as f*ck.

Yay, get in Siem lad. Welcome to the TOON!!!

 

He's signed - six year deal

 

So basically a younger and better version of Kevin Nolan?

 

Also - I hope this means we will play Anita more. Anita should have been number 1 on teamsheet last season in my opinion. Was consistently good and now he has had a full season behind him should step up and will have played with Siem before.

 

I would have been delighted if we had signed him last summer. This year it's a bit of a form and injury gamble. Still, it will have kept the price down along with his soon to expire contract. If he cannot rediscover his form then he might not be a better signing than someone like Grenier, but he will have cost us a fair few million less.

 

Not really been up-to-date on Newcastle news recently, so when I saw "Newcastle sign de Jong", I fully expected to be able to rant about us signing that useless ****wit we had on loan last year. Thankfully it's the better de Jong.

 

Exactly my thoughts.... if only we could get Cabella now......

 

Does last seasons loan justify calling him rubbish? He was playing in a team devoid of confidence and ideas. Given some service he may of actually been good? He may still of been piss poor but don't think last season can be used as a benchmark

 

I didn't call him rubbish... I called him a useless ****wit, which I base on the fact my nan could play better. Sure, she's been dead three years, but I bet she looks more lively in the box than Luuk

 

As always with us there is a significant risk involved. He was injured a lot last season and had his worst season in a while. So we've struck while the irons hot

That said he looked really good at one stage and is only 25. I'm sure Pardew will get the best out of him

We should have course been signing Ryan Gauld as back up to him but nevermind.

Have to say this needs to be the start of a lot of activity for us. It will take him time to find his feet. I'd imagine this means Grenier is dead in the water? Ideally we'd be signing Grenier and Cabella too. Did someone say Danny Ings fee is agreed? That would be a good signing. At least we have found the line.

Cove - Can you tell us what the link up between Anita and De Jong was like?

 

What concerns me is that whilst he comes with this big "Ajax Captain" tag, he still doesn't have many caps? I appreciate it's not the be all and end all, but I'm always sceptical when a decent name signs for us and not someone else and do worry that just 6 caps is an indication.

 

Wesley Sneijder, Nigel de Jong, Rafael van der Vaart, Mark van Bommel, Kevin Strootman, Leroy Fer, Jonathan de Guzman, Marco van Ginkel, Georgino Wijnaldum, Adam Maher, Vurnon Anita... We have been drowning in midfielders in the past 5 years.

 

Fair point. I imagine probably the first name on your list is the main reason.

 

This is more like it and kept well under wraps, this is the sort of surprise the club can spring anytime they like!
I shall look forward to being pleasantly surprised a few more times please.
Pards said he was overjoyed, l bet he is, so long as others follow and have some quality, perhaps the new season won't be so bad as first feared.
We must add to our talent though and not sell our best players, we must add to what little talent we have left.

 

The Anita - De Jong link up was mainly through Eriksen. But when they both played on midfied they didn't combine that much. Anita acted more as a DM were De Jong was the AM. They both excel at positional play, creating space and work that space with their passing or rushes. You can't play kick and rush football with the both on midfield, it has to be tikki takka with 4-3-3. If Pardew sticks to 4-5-1 then De Jong will have trouble adapting to that system. 4-4-2 has a chance though if they both play in CM with De Jong a bit more in an AM role.

 

With Colback it's surely 4-2-3-1, which seems to be the standard now. De Jong will take the number 10, combinations of Anita, Tiote and Colback will be the two 'holding' players. Hopefully we'll have better than Gouffran in LM/LW (Cabella) and a decent center forward. Then it's better than Willo and a replacement for Santon. Possibly someone in for Krul as well. And even then we still need more strength in depth.