Newcastle/FC Twente fan gives warning about potential signing Douglas

So I picked up a copy of "The Mag" on my way down to the Everton game the other day.

I just got reading it today.

There's a writer in it that's a Geordie, but spends a lot of his time in the Netherlands and his local team is FC Twente. He's a Newcastle and FC Twente fan.

He says that Douglas is very much like Tiote - Very aggressive, goes into tackles, but is far more wreckless and even more aggressive.

Apparently, he can find it often difficult to control his emotions at times, and sometimes lashes out. He's, apparently, like the Balotelli of center backs. Full of class, brilliant, a good character when in the right mood, but can **** things up for his team if wound up too much.

He also says he thinks Douglas would find adjusting to the Premier League's pace and style a bit hard to adjust to. And although Douglas himself is a very physical player, Douglas isn't used to getting the same aggressive behaviour back often in the Dutch league, but he'll be getting plenty of it in the PL, and this fan believes that it could cause Douglas to lash out.

My thoughts -

I've heard a bit about Douglas and his problems, and I've seen the video of him getting sent off, and I also heard he assaulted a referee once.

My first thoughts are to assume he's just another player with an attitude problem, but we can sort him out like Ben Arfa, or tame him and improve him like Tiote.

But this will be a lot more critical in the CB area where we can't afford to lose a player often, and also where the Tiote style of play would be suicidal.

Tiote's aggressiveness is great in the CM position where we can bully defenders, but also not be too worried about giving the odd free kick to the opposition, but around our penalty area... I'm not so sure.

Douglas has been in the team of the week a lot due to his defensive work, and also has brilliant heading power and is a constantly goal threat from set pieces. But all that could mean **** all if he cannot control his temper.

HOWEVER -

He's out of contract and will be pretty much free, and I'm going to trust Carr and the scouts that they think he's tamable. If Douglas had a biggish price tag, I'd personally not touch him with a barge poll. He also apparently knows Tiote, and could use him as a role model to improve himself.

 

We havent even near signed him yet, you seem to think its a foregone conclusion

 

I got that far and stopped reading.

 

When did I say or even imply that?

It's obviously that he'll be on our scouts list.

He's free, reasonably young, the sort of defender we need with half decent pace, strength and aerial ability and wages in the dutch league aren't massive so we can compete, maybe, for his signature.

I'd say he'd be quite high on our list. Pardew has been over to the Netherlands a few times now and has been to FC Twente and Ajax games. Vergonthen and Douglas are obviously our two biggest CB targets.

 

Good for you.

 

We wont sign any of the players were linked with

 

We signed pretty much all of them last season...

 

Douglas gets sent off, after attacking a player and the ref:

[video=youtube;BHefLT9Kqkg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHefLT9Kqkg[/video]

Heads up: Dutch commentary, but watch Douglas intervention. Note: he gets sent off later in the game, cant find a vid of that one but the uploader added it to the vid tags.


[video=youtube;g-5p6XVPqrI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-5p6XVPqrI[/video]


Performance compilation, starts at 25 seconds:

[video=youtube;rhbYUmKZAlQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbYUmKZAlQ[/video]

 

Who?

generally we are linked with players for months and the bang we get someone different.

 

He's pretty much right, all our summer business was a surprise. Though it will be harder this time.

 

We were linked with Cabaye and bought him, Santon and bought him, Demba Ba and bought him, Marveaux and bought him when his Liverpool move broke down.

 

we were linked with other players for ages

 

This

 

We were?? I remember it being a suprise signing.

 

It was very brief with Cabaye and Santon, Marveaux we were linked with before then it went cold when he was pretty much a Liverpool player. None of them were heavily linked in the way Douglas has been. All our signings last season were relative surprises and definitely not the players we were most strongly linked with.

 

Me too... No chatter in advance just... Bang... Linked and within 2 days signed..

 

Holy ****ing Christ people are actually agreeing with me!!!!! I'll have to rethink my entire program Korton.

 

Last year the players we were linked to all summer were Gervinho, Gameiro and Erdinc. Look how they turned out?

 

It was a surprise because we thought he'd never come here, but we WERE linked with him and our scouts were keeping reports on him.

We all thought that he would go to someone bigger.

 

Tiote doesn't actually have internal aggression. He simply has an aggressive style. He isn't aggressive or angry when he goes into tackles. It's just his physical nature.

Ben Arfa's anger and aggression was almost always based off the pitch. I have never seen him get wound up or lash out on the pitch. Yeah he's squared up to some players once or twice, but who hasn't?

I'd say they're quite different situations from Douglas, so I'd be wary of getting him if he does have some Joey Barton style anger issues.