Hamburg join van Nistelrooy chase

(GSM) – German side Hamburg have entered the race to sign Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy. The Dutch star has lost his place in the first-team with the Madrid giants and is looking to move.

Van Nistelrooy is keen to move away from Madrid in order to seal his place in Holland’s World Cup finals squad. Interest in him has mounted with Tottenham, West Ham and Stoke all strongly linked with the former Manchester United striker recently.

But Hamburg hope to land the 33-year-old marksman as speculation mounts that the Dutchman is not interested in moving back to England.

“We have the desire to sign one more striker, but we are just going out to do so if such a deal makes sense,” Hamburg chief Bruno Labbadia said.

“I am not a fan of winter deals, many of those players need too much time to settle. Though, it needs to be a player who does not take that long to feel home.”

Current Real team-mate and former Hamburg player Rafael van der Vaart insists van Nistelrooy is still world-class.

It’s a fact that Ruud still belongs to the very best strikers in the European game, there should not be any doubt about this,” van der Vaart told Bild.

“He is a world-class hit-man.”