Heart look at Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

Heart look at Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

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MELBOURNE Heart is looking to boost its striker stocks by signing former Celtic and PSV Eindhoven frontman Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, a tall, strong forward who has played 17 times for the Netherlands.

The 32-year-old is currently without a club, having finished with Austrian side Rapid Vienna earlier this year. But he is keeping fit by training with his former side, PSV, as he looks to find a new team in the January transfer window.

Heart is capitalising on its Dutch coach John van 't Schip's links with his homeland by also targeting another out-of-favour Eredivisie striker, Ajax's Mounir El Hamdaoui, a 27-year-old who was once on the books of Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.

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But the club acknowledges the chances of El Hamdaoui, a Moroccan international opting to come to the other side of the world for a 10-game stint are slim, given his age, the club that he plays for and the fact that he has been linked with clubs in Spain's La Liga and the English Premier League.

Vennegoor of Hesselink - whose name makes him a commentator's nightmare - is a much more feasible proposition given that he is without a club and needs to play to regain match sharpness. Heart has offered the striker a contract to be a guest player and hopes to get a response within 48 hours.

If he agrees he could be used in the round six home game against Newcastle Jets, who narrowly defeated Heart in the first game of the season.

''Jan is a proven goalscorer at high level, he's an experienced international and he could give us the kind of sharpness we need up front in a guest player stint,'' Heart football operations manager John Didulica said yesterday.

''He would fill the position well while Eli Babalj, our young striker, recovers from injury and gets match fit, and give more time for our Brazilian recruit Maycon to get integrated with the team.

''He scored goals when he was at PSV and Celtic, and he's currently back training with PSV. He wants to find a new team in the January window, so what he needs is game time in a good, competitive league. We can offer that here in Australia, and he can help us too.''

With squad lists restricted to 23 players and a salary cap, A-League teams have little room for manoeuvre once the season starts. But, explained Didulica, the guest player loophole allowed clubs to be creative and use money in a short-term deal.

''It does allow you to bring in a quality player for 10 games and spend the money in a concentrated way. If you sign expensive players you are effectively paying them for a whole year when our season is so short - 27 games plus finals - compared to everywhere else in the world.''

The pitch for El Hamdaoui is ambitious, as Didulica concedes: ''There's not much likelihood that he would come here, but we thought it was worth asking. He can't move until the January window � and if he's not playing the A-League might be of some interest.''

One of the coolest names IMO.

All he needs is a horse and a suit of armour, and he'd be SET!

And i now have the answer as to why he is named as such:

"What's the story behind Dutch striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's unusually area-specific name?" asks David Atkinson.

According to our research, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink was thus named because, way back in the 17th century, two farming families in the Enschede area of Holland intermarried. Both the Vennegoor and Hesselink names carried equal social weight, and so - rather than choose between them - they chose to use both.

'Of' in Dutch actually translates to 'or', which would mean that a strict translation of his name would read Jan Vennegoor or Hesselink.

In the Melbourne Derby, the one thing the Heart were lacking was an out and out striker, but the rest of the team were playing really well. If they do manage to sign him, they could turn around their form so far and be a real contender for the playoffs.

It's the same thing as when we hyphenate. Elsewhere it would have become Vennegor-Hesselink.

My Dutch Sauces (not great) reckon he'll sign for PSV in the next few weeks anyway.

Wouldn't they be Dutch Shaushes?

Is Lammers available?

Poor excelsior...

Played for Celtic and PSV - talk about signing a big name

Didn't Cleberson play for PSV...

longest name in world football

even bigger than that - would love to see another ex-Tiger in the A-league

Agree! Premier league player 2 years ago

Would be a huge name for the A-League!