Sunderland have signed Chelsea left-back Patrick van Aanholt on a four-year deal reported to be in the region of £1.5m.
The 23-year-old put pen to paper this afternoon at the Stadium of Light with new coach Gus Poyet and Sunderland made their latest summer acquisition official via their website and social media platform Twitter.
With Sunderland losing their on-loan left-back Marco Alonso owing to him returning to parent club Fiorentina, Black Cats manager Poyet has been desperately seeking a quality left-back in place of the Spaniard and deemed a swoop for Chelsea’s Dutch misfit the perfect solution.
Van Aanholt joined Chelsea in 2007 but had only featured in the side eight times, having spent the majority of the past seven seasons on loan spells in various parts of the UK and in Holland – with Coventry, Newcastle, Leicester, Wigan and Erdivisie side Vitesse Arnhem.
With Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho seemingly happy to keep playing his former right-back Cesar Azpilicueta in the left-back position (and former left-back favourite Ashley Cole not even having a look in last season), there would have been little hope for Van Aanholt had he wished to have stayed under contract at Stamford Bridge.
Had the player’s permanent move to Sunderland not have been sealed it is highly likely he would have spent yet another season living a nomadic existence as a Chelsea on-loan player.
As a highly-rated Netherlands international Van Aanholt has played for all of the junior squads from the U16s to the U21s and has also broken into the senior team with two caps gained in friendly matches against Colombia (in November 2013) and Ecuador (in May 2014).