Clubs cool on de Jong interest

Twente have revealed they have received no official offers for Dutch international Luuk de Jong.

The highly-rated young forward had been tipped to follow the likes of Newcastle midfielder Cheikh Tiote, Fulham attacker Bryan Ruiz and Wigan midfielder Ronnie Stam from the Eredivisie club into English football, but so far rumoured interest has not turned into formal bids for his services.

“There might have been a lot of club that are interested but there has been nothing official and we have not had any clubs who have officially approached us or made a bid of 10 million pounds or so to buy him,” a Twente source told Goal.com.

“Luuk is already playing for the national side although he is behind Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Robin Van Persie and Dirk Kuyt who are a little bit better but they are a little bit older than Luuk.”

“But we think that he will go to Poland and Ukraine for the European Championships and we hope he stays with Twente for a long time but there is a lot of silly money in England and that has damaged us in the past.”

Since leaving De Graafschap in 2008, the 21-year-old De Jong, who has been capped six times by his country, has scored 26 goals in 62 Eredivisie appearances for Twente and recently-installed manager Steve McClaren is keen to retain the services of the club’s prized asset.

However, McClaren will recognise that the financial muscle of English clubs and the lure of the Premier League will prove difficult to resist, having lost Edin Dzeko to Manchester City last January while in charge of Bundesliga side Wolfsburg.