Double Dutch and a Brazillian too

In the mad, bad, quick-paced, ruthless, morally ambiguous, high stakes, desperate, difficult, financially disturbing, overblown, overhyped, ridiculous world of the football transfer market, speed is everything. That and a wallet bulging with 50 pound/dollar/euro/rouble/rupee bills.

As a result, getting everything done in the last amount of time possible is probably an advantage to stop your rivals pinching your almost sown up deal like a wingman swooping in on the pilot just as he goes for a quick reliever before leaving the tacky, overpriced, under populated club.

So kudos to Alan Pardew for looking to get all his summer transfer business done on one visit to a single country in one go, if you go along with what the Daily Mail is suggesting.

The Mail has it that Newcastle are planning a three pronged assault on the Dutch league, with two Dutchman and a Brazilian lined up. Inevitably the story has them going “double-dutch” despite their being an additional player involved when two Dutch and Brazilian sounds just as good to me as play on words.

Anywho, the three players Pardew is keen to snap up are PSV and Netherlands left-back Erik “superfluous ‘I’” Pieters rated at £5 million, defender Virgil van Dijk from FC Groningen and Brazilian defender Douglas of FC Twente who, we are told by the Mail is “imposing”.

Pardew has been chasing Pieters for two transfer windows according to the Mail and is a close friend of Tim Krul (they’re both Dutch you see) which may ease the deal; two statements that seem to disprove each other. Meanwhile, imposing Douglas has also attracted interest from Spurs, Liverpool, Ajax and Bayern Munich, thus upping his value to £6 million.

So all Pardew has to do is scrape together the funds and find a big enough suitcase to bring all three players back in to save some money on flight tickets.