One of our most pressing concerns: a lack of bite and quality in central midfield - has been addressed. A product of the famed Ajax Academy, he won their Player of 2004/05 before moving to Hamburg. He has 30 Dutch caps and was a regular for them in Euro 2008.
In terms of his style, I can only point you what former coach and fellow Dutchman Martin Jol said of him recently; that he:
"is the type who will thrive in the Premier League. He's tough and can build up the play, and that's a rare combination. He's like Michael Carrick only smaller. He's a very good professional who lives for football and over the past two seasons has been maybe our best player."His length of deal (four and a half years) means that we now have a good core of players contracted to 2013: Micah Richards (20), Michael Johnson (20 - I still have hope), Joe Hart (21), Pablo Zabaleta (24), de Jong (24) and, err, Craig Bellamy (29).
This means of the six things I identified on New Year's Eve as priorities for the Transfer Window, we have tied up three: a centre forward, a holding midfielder and a left back. All that's left is a centre back, another goalkeeper and a new contract for Danny Sturridge.
4 comments:
Good news at last, taken a bit of time this one, I think we will be strong enough now for the rest of the season, although a center half wouldn't go amiss
I thought Johnson could've been our Kaka
"I thought Johnson could've been our Kaka"
What, has Johnson been using us as a stalking horse to enble him to go to Real Madrid?
LOL!
Glad we've got a bit of time and Newcastle next to try and sort a line up. I assume this will leave a 4-3-3 midfield line up of Kompany, de Jong, Ireland and SWP, Bellamy, Robinho？ Not bad if you ask me; a better balance of defence and attack. What a shame about Johnson: with him fit we could drop Kompany into defence and not chew our nails off whilst watching Onuaha and Richards attempting to forge a partnership.
I agree with this being good news. We'll have a bit more bite around midfield when times get tough, and with this added competition, hopefully Johnson can stay (we've have never had a reason to sell) and push on to the potential he was showing in the first half of last season. Or maybe Fernandes could push on to be as good as he is on FM2009 (which is ridiculously, I should add)
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