Newcastle United released Siem De Jong in 2017 after three miserable seasons in the Premier League – but he’s back in the big-time with Ajax.
While Newcastle United are scrapping around at the bottom of the Premier League table, one of the most disappointing signings in the club’s recent history stepped off the bench in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Siem De Jong might have made only the briefest of cameos in Ajax’s 1-0 home defeat to Chelsea but, at the age of 30, one of the most unfortunate footballers in the European game is slowly breathing short, sharp breaths into a career that looked to be over at the top level.
Newcastle thought they had a new talisman when they snapped up the Ajax captain in 2014. This was a man who had lifted four successive Eredivisie titles, hit double figures in four of his final five seasons in Amsterdam, and had the natural ability to make himself a perfect fit for The Magpies’ number 10 shirt.
Instead, the so-called ‘new Teddy Sheringham’ will look back on his three year Newcastle career and wince. From collapsed lungs to a contact lens mishap, De Jong made just 22 appearances for The Magpies, scoring just once, and there were few lining the streets when his time on Tyneside came to an end in 2017.
But, back at Ajax after a controversial spell at PSV, the former Dutch international is on the road to recovery again, making his first appearance in the Champions League for three years.
Even the most hard-nosed Newcastle fan couldn’t begrudge him that.
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