Vertonghen looking to leave Ajax

Vertonghen looking to quit Ajax
Long term Newcastle United target Jan Vertonghen has confirmed that he wants to leave Ajax and will not sign a new deal at the club.

The 24-year-old Belgian international has said that he will miss Ajax but is looking to move to a Premier League club, which will ***** the ears of a few clubs, including Newcastle.

The defender is rated at £10m but with only 16 months left on his current deal there may well be some scope to do a deal and pick him up a little bit cheaper, that’s if Newcastle are still interested of course! Mind you there have been various reports of NUFC representatives keeping tabs on Vertonghen over the last few months so I think it’s safe to say there is till an interest on our part.

“I am still under contract until June 2013, but I do not intend to extend it,” said Vertonghen.

“I hope to continue my career at a good Premier League club where I can stay for many seasons. I will miss Ajax and I do not plan to sell my house. But I want to get to know England and the unique atmosphere of its stadia.”

The thing is, do really need a centre-back as ‘high profile’ as Vertonghen now that Fabricio Coloccini has agreed a new deal with the club?

The obvious answer is yes as we should be looking to strengthen, but if you look a bit deeper then there are questions that can be raised about the viability of it.

The first one is playing time. Will Vertonghen be happy to sit on the bench? Or will Steven Taylor be happy to sit on the bench if a player like Vertonghen takes his place? Would they then become unhappy and look at getting first-team football elsewhere thus leaving us in the same position that we started in?

Personally I think the kind of defender we bring in over the summer will depend on our league position and, ultimately, whether or not we qualify for Europe. If we do manage to grab a Europa League spot then we’ll need that strength in depth. There will be more games to go round, plus there will be more injuries picked up, or at least there will be a chance of more injuries being picked up!

At the end of the day, we need strength in depth, but we also need to be able to keep players happy by giving them the regular playing time they will be after. This is all well and good, but there is also a risk of there being a knock-on effect on the players we have already.

Overall I’m still in the sign Vertonghen camp, or sign another highly rated defender if it isn’t to be Vertonghen. Why not strengthen from a position of relative strength rather than face a dilemma similar to what we are going through now again?

Your thoughts please.

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

57 thoughts on “Vertonghen looking to leave Ajax

  1. I’m in the sign two CBs camp. Vertonghen/M’Baiwa and Douglas. We need strength in depth, and pace, and class.

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  2. Just thinking out loud here, I seem to recall Steven Taylor is pretty handy at RB, could we see a back line of Santon,Colo,Vertonghen,Saylor?
    Shoot me if that sounds daft 😆

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  3. Agree it’s a hard balance to find keeping everyone happy, but as much as I love Steven Taylor the lad hasn’t been fit and played over 50% of games in a season for three years now. Until such time as we can be sure his injury problems are over, we have to sign quality for first team and not back-up. If it was anyone else of his quality having to fight for his place I would be sure we’d lose them but Taylor will stay at Newcastle as long as there is a place for him, and as you said, with injuries etc over the course of a season he would still get significant playing time.

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  4. I’m with Prem, 2 cb’s. If that happens, Williamson can be sold in the summer or January. He’s good in the air, but his consistent pulling and lack of ball skills has hurt us

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  5. lets be honest i don’t think he will come to the toon, he will be tottenham bound imo, shame though coz he is a cracking player, i personally feel we will end up with douglas.

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  6. It would be a good move to get this lad, as we need atleast another quality CB. I don’t think there is anyone left now that thinks Willo is the answer.
    As Prem says we should be after 2 but we’ll not get 2, I would rather get 1 plus a quality RB and I would try to keep Simmo as back up.

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  7. If we can buy this guy that will be a massive signing, this lad has a lot of talent, very class when he plays very intelligent and a great relance very precise, he is very comfortable with the ball and can help us to play more passing game, he never hoofes the ball.

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  8. and out of topic
    Very nice interview in France Football of Ben Arfa

    Just a sample I try to translate it in the better way :

    “I will never be like the others, but because I don’t want to. I’ve always tried to show me a little, to show my difference. Be in the pitch for making passes at two meters which are useless as some others do because they don’t want to take risk, mmmm … me, it does not interest me. Under these conditions, I must accept that people are more demanding with me.”

    He also speaks that he still dreaming to win the World cup 2014 and winning the golden ball.

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  9. Toonsy you say he is a £10 mill player, I think they’ll need to drop their price for us to get him, which leaves the problem that Alex touch’s on other teams might be willing to pay the full price.

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  10. Yes for the moment he seems happy, but he says that he has big ambitions for the future so he sayed that in other interviews so he wanna play the CL, so as long as the club matches his ambitions he will stay, if not he will leave. But i think the long term deal with Colo and Krul is a good sign for him. But after that he needs to find a big european club, that is not obvious, the end of the season will be crucial for him I think if he can now starts every game until the end and be in the french squad for the Euro, he will stay. But if until the end of season Pardew is still using him ocasionnally, I think he will try to leave, because watching players like Raylor, Obertan, Jonas, Best, Cisse playing ahead of him must be very difficult for his self confidence.

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  11. I love Vertonghen but he would be too similar to Coloccini. I think we need a Mbiwa or Douglas type. Probably Mbiwa would be more useful with his pace but Douglas is a free…

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  12. We defo Need a quality defender like Vertonghen! We are quite thin in our defence with Santon still finding his feet in PL and Simmo not being fully developed either. As mikeashleyswallet says @2 Saylor is quite handy at right back aswell! Santon Colo Vertonghen Saylor would be an awesome force! We defo need a young developing CB aswell now that Kadar is being scrapped and Streete being too young or is he??

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  13. On the team for Arsenal I would be tempted to go 4-1-4-1;

    ______________Krul______________
    _Simpson Williamson Coloccini Santon_
    _____________Tiote______________
    Ben Arfa___Guthrie Cabaye___Jonas
    _____________Ba______________

    If it is that, I don’t think it will be because Cisse was below par vs Sunderland, I think after what Pardew said after Spurs that we needed to be more defensive after Fulham and Spurs we will see that team.

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  14. Re: Ben Arfa I dont think he is unhappy, he is maybe a bit impatiant, well who can blame him, but his injury was serious and we are seeing now that it takes a lot of time to recover from it. Now he is slowly starting to produce and get the feeling of ballhandling and passing back, because up until the scum game he has been slowly regaining form and feeling for football back. He will defo be a regular next season in my opinion and hopefully we will add to the squad in the summer to make us more competitive and free flowing as he will grow with better ballplaying team mates.

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  15. Dan4 – If we do play Jonas and HBA, I’d like to see Jonas on the right and HBA on the left. As it is, their shooting rarely comes off to any effect when they cut inside, and they have great difficulty in crossing with their weaker foot.
    I think we get too hung up on formations. We need fluidity. Players need to use their intelligence to fill areas as and when. At the moment we are too predictable, and formulaic.
    Yohan Cabaye is not showing much intelligence at the moment. He keeps dropping to the half way line to take a two yard pass from Colo or Willo when he should be buzzing around our front two and linking up with our wingers. If he did that, he would be giving the opposition so much more to think about and guard against. Kieron Dyer used to do the same thing, and it would drive me mad. For one thing, its insulting to the defender. For another, its an easy cop out from the business end.

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  16. As anyone who may remember anything I have said on here, I have said for ages we should be replacing people from a position of strength. I think it is obvious Willo and Simmo are the weak links. Not to say they arent good, but if we want to push on next season we need to strengthen. I want 2 CB’s. I think if we are able to finish in the europa spot then we also need to think of the squad too. Saylor will get playing time but we need to get better players in. Vertonghen and Douglas would be great with Willo going would do me fine

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  17. B&B, maybe but I think for the first 60 minutes if/when we use that formation with them both cutting inside they can slip Ba in on goal. I agree on Cabaye but I think that’s because a lot of times Tiote and Cabaye are facing three players so he feels if he commits to far forward it will us exposed.

    With this formation it give him or Guthrie the freedom to go and push and link up play but also go for man for man on Song, Arteta and Rosicky.

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  18. Of course we need another brilliant centre half. It doesn’t matter whether Colo has signed or not. What if he got injured? The fact is that players are happy to be at a club challenging for things. The more we challenge for the more minutes every player in the squad gets. At the minute Pardew cannot rest anyone, but if he had the strength he could.

    Just utter tripe to suggest we may not need a centre back as good as this guy just because we already have one.

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  19. On the defender front, another player that is on a free is Hedwiges Maduro. Dutch centre back who can also play in midfield.

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  20. Stuart, I would love him, have no complaints if we signed him but for his height he’s not as physical as you would think. He loves to bring the ball out of defense, a bit like Luiz but not as erratic. I think especially for probably half the price Mbiwa would be more suited to us.

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  21. I remember when we were after ben arfa the press kept on linking names of other clubs usually arsenal when in reality the deal as good as done, Same when we were after modric he was linked with barcelona, milan, manure etc. and when it came to it he had to choose between us who finished 12th that season and spuds who finished 11th.

    I would be surprised if arsenal wanted him because i cant see them wanting two left sided centre backs in the same team and i doubt wenger would spend that big on a back up and we all know that spurs will be without a manager when the season finishes so i cant see them being active too early in the window.

    We may well have a chance to get in for him early but whether he wants to come or ashley will pay ajax what they want is anyones guess…

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  22. We need as much quality as possible. Right now we have a quality CB, an injury prone CB, and a Championship CB. The more top level players you have the better- it’s the managers job to keep them all happy and if we are in Europe there will be enough games that we would need to rotate.

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  23. Mackems are proper spitting dummies out at the minute like. 😆

    I for one loved it when Pardew ran up to o’neil when we got the penalty. It’s nice to have a manager with a bit of passion for the club. Sir Bobby obviously had it but that kind of passion reminds me of KK’s ‘i would love it if we beat them’ speech.

    Yes, maybe he was wrong in this day and age to do it. But he was just acting on emotion and is only human. If you’re part of this club you HAVE to have passion or else we’re going nowhere.

    Well done Pards to have the bottle to take Santon off and take our 9mill signing off also. Something had to be done at half time though and we battered them from minute 45 onwards. I heard a few groans at the match when Ameobi came on… he showed them f*ckers didn’t he? 😆

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  24. HBA definately had his best match for us but when going forward and chasing a goal i counted 5 times simmo was an easy pass out wide for him and he went on to just lose the ball. All i ask for him is to get his head up and look for a pass. other than that though the sunderland players couldn’t really handle him 🙂

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  25. Nobby 😆 Just read O’Neills comments in Sunderland Echo. Very funny! “Nobody could deny we were the better side on the day”.. Shaded a scrappy first half Martin, well done. Fact is Sunderland were pinned in their own box long before the sending off. We actually had more chances in the opening fifteen minutes of the second half than they did in the whole match and played much better football overall. Bitter words from those who will always be in our shadow 😆

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  26. In my opinion, apart from youth players, there is no point signing anyone unless they are better than what we already have. If a player is not prepared to fight for a place in the team because we’ve signed someone better then its tough ****.

    Squad strength is key these days, and IF we qualify for Europe next year it will be even more essential to rotate the team.

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  27. @Keith 28

    I know, Keith, I’m shocked at Martin O’Neil’s pathetic comments since the game, I actually liked him pre-Scum, pitiful comments from such a likeable guy previously.

    If you see the highlights we had more chance’s after the 90mins than they did all game. Still glad we avoided defeat though!

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  28. Nobby @27 probably right but counted about the same number near the end where Simpson and Tiote should have played a simple ball to Benny on the edge of the box to have a crack and ignored him and tried lobbing it into the box instead. Was driving me mad!

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  29. There’s a good article on the Mirror website, it highlights the fact Sunderland are closer to Europe ‘at the minute’ than we are, basically they need to win 2 games to get to the final and we need to finish 5/6th. As mad as it sounds we need Liverpool to be the team who finish above us, i believe

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  30. @31 I was the same mate but he’s just coming across as bitter, maybe due to the run-ins with Pardew during the game who knows, but to say nobody would argue they were the better side and accuse Newcastle of being the dirty team is just pathetic.

    Saying there was a few yellow cards against us that we were lucky to get away with.. like who? Simpson shouldn’t have been booked. Cabaye definitely shouldn’t have been. Demba Ba should but his one and only foul, and if that’s worse than a yellow then Cattermole, McClean and Gardner should have been sent off. Tiote was our only other one and got it for persistent fouls, all of which were fairly standard fouls, players running in his line etc.. The McClean foul was the one i’d say he’s talking about and Tiote’s foot slipped on top of the ball, was purely accidental. Just pathetic comments all round from MON

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  31. Keith @35

    Yes, mate agree. Even the Tiote one made me breathe a sigh of relief but nobody can say it was intentional. I think the Cattermole and Mclean on Simpson tackles stand out more for me. I was shocked at how many yellow cards we did get though, but one was for the penalty from Williamson. How silly does it look again, I would say you get away with that 19 times out of 20.

    Cisse didn’t have a kick really though did he. I wonder if Ben Arfa starts next game? I think his all round play was good on Sunday compared to other games he’s played. I just think we need a better RB behind him, love Simmo’s defending at times this season but isn’t threatening enough going forward, Raylor to RB and Ben Arfa RM against Arsenal?

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  32. We should go for Vertonghen €10m and Mbiwa €7m to strengthen the defence and sell Simpson £2m with Guthrie leaving as a free agent.
    We could also sell Perch for £500k.

    Vertonghen can also play as a midfield defender and replace Tiote for Acon commitments .

    Mbiwa is very good at right back as well as centre back.

    We should also go for Dost €8m , a striker who would complement both Ba and Cisse , and his introduction to a game would give the opposition a totally different headache to consider.

    For those who are not aware of Dost , think Andy Carroll type player but a lot better than Carroll will ever be.

    Lovenkrands will be leaving the club as a free agent in the summer and we could sell Best for £2m.

    Just adding those three players would enhance our chances of not only a top 4 finish next season but have us in with a shout of winning the title.

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  33. Toonarmy.. McClean was a yellow, no need to go in so gun-ho in that area of the pitch.. Garnders on Coloccini was a yellow.. Cattermole’s at any other time than the first 30 seconds of a match was a straight red for me, could have easily broke Tiote’s leg.

    Forgot about Williamson, but yeah, although you see it all the time it was a penalty, yellow for it fair enough but what did MON want a red for that or something? don’t see where he’s coming from at all.

    No Cisse wasn’t in it at all was he? He’s not like Ba, he plays on the shoulder of the last man and thrives on good supply. Said it last week, we’ll have to get out of this style of long ball football to get the best out of him.

    Would play Benny from the start regardless of formation, if nothing else will cause a ropey Arsenal defence a few problems and be a good out ball for us if we’re under pressure. Ideal scenario would be play three in midfield, Tiote, Cabaye and Gutierrez. then let Ba and Ben Arfa play off Cisse or just rotate between the three, but Pardew will stick to 442 I think, would be very surprised if he didn’t.

    Not sure on full backs now tbh. If we aren’t inviting pressure onto ourselves Simmo looks okay at RB, and I like Santon a lot, but Raylor will play decent football and try find someones feet rather than hoof a lot of the time, which I’d prefer. Hard one to call for me against Arsenal.

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  34. we should be watching rangers to see if they release a centre back, so we can pounce and sign him up.

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  35. Alex @42 Have they even got any decent centre backs? only defender I know of really is Lee Wallace, LB signed from Hearts in the summer

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  36. I think this season has shown that we need more than simply another backup type CB. Over the next few years, collo will be getting to an age where you tend to see more minor injuries, STaylor has always had bad luck with injuries, and Willo has been very disapointing for me this year. I think we clearly need to invest here, even if it means we don’t address the FB position.

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  37. What we are going to have to learn how to do is get out of this ‘game of two halves’ nonsense having a good first half and ropey 2nd game and vica versa. We need to start turning up for both halves if we want into europe. 🙂

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  38. keithr – don’t know mate haha but we haven’t got any so whatever they have is better than what we have.

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  39. Would play Benny from the start regardless of formation, if nothing else will cause a ropey Arsenal defence a few problems and be a good out ball for us if we’re under pressure. Ideal scenario would be play three in midfield, Tiote, Cabaye and Gutierrez. then let Ba and Ben Arfa play off Cisse or just rotate between the three, but Pardew will stick to 442 I think, would be very surprised if he didn’t.
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    For me it’s time to play benny in the #10 role fr the reasons you mention. I don’t care how it’s done but it’s time for Pards to figure it out

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  40. MDS Pards said on Sunday about that being Benny’s best 45 mins and he’s going to have to think of how to fit him into the team.

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  41. Alex @47 😆 true enough!

    MDS @46 Yeah I guess Bocanegra would be okay but for back-up I’d rather get promising youngsters tbh, someone like Manolas, Dunk, Maguire

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  42. I meant Boca as a backup player. He’s got loads of experience, smart player, calm on the ball, can cover at CB or LB. Definately a step up form Willo

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  43. MDS.. ah yeah I know, would personally rather someone younger though if they’re a centre back signing for back-up more than going straight into 1st team. If we do sign 1 or 2 CB in the summer can see Williamson and Perch being sold

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  44. sorry about the previous comments lads, my mate (aberdeen fan) got onto the computer 🙄 .
    MDS
    love that team been preaching it for a month or so. as i said yesterday, if pardew starts the same that started the derby against Arsenal he is a fool.

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  45. I take im the only one who doesn’t really rate O’Neill then?

    Did well with Leicester all those years ago true, but what has he dobe since then?

    Got Celtic to win a few trophies. Woohoo.
    Spent a fortune at Villa and never finished higher than 6th. Spat the dummy when he couldn’t waste anymore.

    Brilliant 😕

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  46. ah he is a decent manager, in a different league to Bruce anyway

    wrong article posted btw 😆 wanted the other one.. no matter, that one should wind a few from the darkside up 😀

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