When Louis van Gaal was manager of Manchester United, De Telegraaf were often correct about the manager’s transfer budget and targets. Van Gaal had written a column for the newspaper, and had connections there, with Dutch journalist Marcel van der Kraan thought to be especially well informed.
Now, with Ronald Koeman manager at Everton, and also with a De Telegraaf column, the newspaper have for the past two days gone really big on Davy Klaassen to Everton.
Monday’s sport section had Klaassen on the front page, with a double page spread following (pictured below), all about an Everton move.
Tuesday’s De Telegraaf sport section (pictured below), Telesport, goes with the same. Three more pages, and many more words.
The idea of the transfer is once again laid out, but, also again, despite the coverage there doesn’t appear to be anything especially imminent. There’s a lot of calm, Dutch calm, for sure.
Koeman does write a column for De Telegraaf, but that doesn’t mean he feeds them stories out of some sort of loyalty. His only concern is Everton, but the newspaper does often do very well on Dutch slanted Premier League stories.
De Telegraaf say Everton’s transfer budget this summer is €100m, and they don’t want to spend €30m on Klaassen. They’d want the Ajax midfielder for cheaper than the €30m figure which has been pushed in the Netherlands.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, De Telegraaf seem to believe it is, but at less than the figure.
‘The completion of the transfer can take several days, but Everton is already counting on the arrival of the Ajax captain’, is a line from the article which shows how likely it’s thought a deal is.
Koeman has been ‘the biggest voice’ pushing the transfer at Everton, and it’s not a sign he’s specifically looking at Dutch signings, with De Telegraaf saying Klaassen will be the exception rather than the rule.
