Could Van Nistelrooy cut it again in the Premier League?

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has made it clear that he would be more than happy to take Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy on loan. Of course, Tottenham already have Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe and at the time of writing, they still have Roman Pavlyuchenko as well.

Redknapp said,

“If he was available it could be of interest. It’s not impossible. If it was right we could be interested. It’s interesting but it depends what the deal is, he was fantastic in England and a great goal scorer.”

The great Dutch international striker is thirty-three now and he has only featured for Real Madrid four times this season. His goal scoring record stands scrutiny against the best strikers the world have ever seen, but the consensus of opinion would suggest that age and a series of injuries have probably left him short of his best.

Move

As it is unlikely that Redknapp would want five potential first team forwards at the club one would assume that Pavlyuchenko would have to move on before Tottenham made a serious enquiry.

The question is whether Ruud van Nistelrooy could still be a top striker in the Premier League.

Impressed

Van Nistelrooy started at Den Bosch where as a youngster he impressed with twenty goals in seventy-one games. He moved on to Heerenveen where he bagged sixteen goals in his one season with them.

He earned a move to PSV where he really made a name for himself with a remarkable spell of three seasons in which he found the net seventy-five times in ninety-one appearances.

Success

Everybody knows what a great success he was at Manchester United. After joining them from PSV for £19million in 2001, he scored an impressive 150 goals in 219 games in all competitions during his five years at Old Trafford.

His twenty-four million Euros move to Real Madrid has been plagued by injury and he has never quite managed to achieve the cult status at the Bernabeu that he held in Manchester. Because of that some people regard his time in Spain as something of a failure. The statistics show it has been anything but. He has scored sixty-five times in ninety-seven games.

Remarkable

In all competitions his club career record shows 514 appearances and a remarkable 326 goals. To show that he can do it at the highest level he has also scored more than a goal every other game for Holland at international level with thirty-three goals in sixty-four games.

The problem for any side taking a chance on Van Nistelrooy is that since 2008 he has played just twelve games at club level and no games at international level.

Pace

Some would say that ‘once a goalscorer, always a goalscorer’, but despite never having a great deal of pace, Van Nistelrooy was lightening quick to get a yard in front of his marker. Would he still be able to do this in the hustle and bustle of the Premier League?

I hope Harry or another Premier League manager does take a chance on the Dutch striker. It would be great to see him in England again and much like Sir Alex Ferguson’s gamble on Michael Owen, it is surely worth a chance.

What do you think? Could Van Nistelrooy roll back the years and be a scoring machine in the Premier League again?