EMNES has signed! Digard has joined him! The great Boro turn to youth has started in earnest with two signings within 24 hours that offer the prospect of VFM pace, power and hunger to liven up the plodding mono-paced midfield.
Marvelous Marvin - one of the hottest properties in Dutch football - put pen to paper on a £3.2m four year deal last year. The Gazette have the picture of him in a Boro shirt and you don't get any more official than that.
And just before close of play Boro also resolved their haggling over method of payment with cash-strapped PSG to complete the £4m move for high-tempo holding midfielder Didier Digard, a George Junior destroyer who has played for France at every level up to Under-21.
Gazette man Adam Steel, who has a smattering of Dutch (is there no end to this desk's talents) spoke to the Sparta reporter on the Rotterdam paper yesterday who was gushing in his praise of a player who shines in the middle, out on the right or up front. He raved about Emnes obvious talent as a youngster, saying that all the way through the juniors he stood out in a way that few had done in Holland since Ronaldo (the original goofy one) exploded at PSV.
Emnes, just turned 20, made his top flight debut three years ago but really caught fire midway last season and caught the eye with a sizzling second half to the season, scoring eight goals in the final ten games. Here's one of them:
The Sparta reporter, Erik van der Paalor, is gutted that crowd favourite is leaving but is mightily relieved it was not to local big boys Feyenoord who were desperate to steal him away on the cheap, as they usually do. More of this excellent background in today's Gazette.
One potential fly in the ointment is that Emnes has been selected in Holland's Olympics squad for Beijing and with the football competition taking place in August our boy could miss a hefty chunk of pre-season and the first few games.
Still, it sounds like an excellent signing, a young player with power and pace, hunger and a creative edge. Digard ticks the same boxes. I like him already. He seems determined to play for Boro and sounds maybe a bit headstrong, managing to get himself suspended by PSG after he gave club chiefs both barrels and called them 'incompetent' as well as dipping into his French-Teesside phrase book and saying the Gallic giants were "doing my head in."
After years of widespread complaints about buying 30 plus-year-old big names on the downward curve and with no resale value this represents a much needed turn to a healthy and sustainable recruitment model - cue moans about buying unknowns and how we should blow the budget on a media hyped Chelsea benchwarmer.
And after years of beat-the-deadline signings in the final few days of August - and subsequent repent at leisure cliches about players not being quite fit or not having quite bedded into the shape and tempo of how the team play because they missed pre-season - it is nice to get a few new faces in before the squad even clocks back in.
Lambie has pledged to have three new faces in before pre-season training starts on Monday. Two down, one to go.
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