Serbian starlet Slobodan Rajkovic has moved to the Dutch club FC Twente on a season long loan yesterday. Steve McLaren the former England and Middlesborough manager who is currently in charge of the team from Enschede was quiet enthused by his signing. He said that he is quiet pleased with signing a young player with his qualities and also mentioned about his ability to play in different positions in defence.
McLaren further said that he had been keeping an eye on Rajkovic for quiet some time and when the opportunity to sign him came along, he acted immediately. He said that a lot of English clubs were also monitoring his situation so his signing is some sort of minor coup. The German club SV Hamburger were also amongst the clubs who were tracking Rajkovic.
Rajkovic was snapped up by Chelsea quiet early when he was only about 16 and the signing fee at that time was a world record for a player under eighteen years of age. As part of the deal, Rajkovic stayed at his parent club OFK Beograd till 2006-07 season. Subsequently he was loaned out to PSV where he spent the whole of last season. Chelsea has developed close ties with PSV over the last few years and have parked quiet a few of their players who are not eligible for workpermit in England at the time of signing. Alex and Alcides were the two Chelsea players loaned to PSV before Rajkovic who moved as a part of the deal which saw Alex coming over to Chelsea having secured a workpermit from the home office.
Rajkovic didn’t had the greatest of seasons last year with PSV and was involved more only towards the later half of the season. He didn’t get many chances to start at his favoured centerback position and more often than not was preferred at leftback. He did put in a couple of strong performances especially the one against Fiorentina in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup which caught the eyes of Steve McLaren. Having watched him on a few occasions for PSV and Serbian National Team I think he has the potential to go places. He is a no nonsense defender and has the ability to dominate aerially. He lacks a bit of pace but makes up for it more often than not with his excellent positioning like our own John Terry. He might already look like a man monster but he is still 19 years of age so he is a bit short on experience which shows sometimes in his game.
It remains to be seen whether he will in the first team plans for McLaren as it is still early days in his job and he would be chopping and changing his squad a bit in the summer. But considering that lack of first team opportunities was one of the main reasons why Chelsea recalled him from PSV, I have a fair reason to believe that he would get good number of games. FC Twente are also in the third qualifying round of Champions League and if they are able to negotiate the two legs successfully they would be playing against the big boys of Europe. Rajkovic already has some European exposure with PSV last season in the UEFA Cup so a chance to play in the Champions League would be a good learning experience for him. He is likely to be on duty for the Serbian national team in Olympics during the month of August which would prevent him from taking part in the qualifying matches. He is highly regarded at Chelsea and would be trying hard next season to impress the Chelsea management. Here’s hoping we might not have to wait too long before we see him in Chelsea colours.
