Royston Drenthe

The player making the greatest impact at this month’s UEFA Under 21 Championships is Royston Drenthe of Feyenoord. He’s being touted to go just about everywhere with no less than 6 clubs making inquiries: West Ham, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Newcastle and Manchester City as well as Scottish outfit Celtic.

Drenthe has been outstanding during the tournament. A left back converted to winger for the tournament, he has only played one season in the Dutch top flight for Rotterdam side Feyenoord. In his first game against Israel he as deemed to be playing against weak competition but in the second game against Portugal, Drenthe jinked, skipped, slid and all around terrorized the Portuguese defense. If a defender (both Portuguese defenders –starter and sub to replace him, were yellow carded) when they stood off he's let off a hard strike, charge to the by-line or zing cross into the box. He was a real handful and cemented his class against Belgium in the final group match.

As scouts left the matches, I’m sure they were pondering what it would cost them to prize the player away from Feyenoord.

Drenthe’s agent said he’s received about 15 inquiries from different clubs throughout Europe.
He’s a dedicated kid:

“After the Portugal game I didn’t get any sleep until 4am. I’m still so pumped up and I lie and think about my game; analysing what went well and what went wrong. Only after rerunning the game several times do I fall asleep.”

The 20-year-old Drenthe could be available for a modest 3.6m pounds but I can’t imagine that he would sell for that price should he have anymore standout performances at the tournament. The asking price is well within the reach of most clubs so a bidding war could ensue. It’s up to Feyenoord which could easily block a deal and cash in next season where the player will likely garner a bigger sum.