Newcastle United have built up a contingent of French players over the past couple of seasons, but Holland goalkeeper Tim Krul is hoping that this summer will see the arrival of more Dutchmen on Tyneside.
Newcastle have taken over from Arsenal in being the home to French players in the Premier League. While Arsene Wenger was renowned for bringing young Frenchmen to English football, now Alan Pardew, Graham Carr and co. are following a similar model.
It’s no surprise that Newcastle have bought so many French players in recent years when you look at the value that there is in the market and the quality of player that you can get for a small fee.
Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa are the two most high profile Frenchmen on Tyneside, but then there’s the likes of Gabriel Obertan, Sylvain Marveaux, Romain Amalfitano and Mehdi Abeid, and hopefully Mathieu Debuchy will be joining them in the next couple of weeks.
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Proud Dutchman Tim Krul is well aware of the number of Frenchmen at the club and he’d quite like to see some of his compatriots join him in the north-east.
Krul is quoted as saying: “We [Newcastle] could use some Dutch. We have lots of French at this time. It would be nice if players like Anita and Van der Wiel can play their football with us.”
Victor Anita and Gregory van der Wiel are just two Dutchmen Newcastle have been linked with, as well as Krul’s close friend Erik Pieters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the Eredivisie made the move to the Magpies this summer.
Van der Wiel had a poor Euro 2012 with The Netherlands, but is still a quality performer, and I’ve only heard good things about Anita. If either of them are half as good as Tim Krul then they’d be great additions to the Newcastle squad.
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Both quality players, I would be happy with both.