Marcus Berg: PL Trio Sweet on U21 Golden Boot Swede: Spurs, Everton & Villa Lead Chase
Everton, Aston Villa and Tottenham are all chasing Swedish star Marcus Berg after an impressive European U21 Championships where the striker has scored 7 goals in just 4 games. Sweden may have been eliminated on penalties by England but the interest in Berg has grown with the likes of Ajax, AZ, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Lazio and Villarreal also reported to be chasing him.
The 22-year-old scored a hat-trick versus Belarus at the U21 European Championships followed by braces against Serbia and England to made him the tournament’s leading scorer. The striker has been in terrific form for his Dutch club side Groningen and recently scored his first full international goal in Sweden’s 4-0 home World Cup qualifier v Malta.
Berg scored 22 league goals in 35 appearances for Groningen last season taking his overall tally for the club to an impressive 37 goals in 60 league games (56 starts). He was signed by Groningen in the Summer of 2007 for £2.5m to replace the Ajax bound Luis Suarez and has proven to be a huge success. Last season the prolific Swede managed to score four goals in one match against Roda as well as a hat-trick against Utrecht. He finished one goal behind leading scorer Mounir El Hamdaoui in the Dutch top division and has been widely tipped to seal a summer move to one of the bigger league.
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The player himself has admitted he would be interested. Berg told Expressen: “I like the Spanish league, it’s fantastic. The English is also good.
“You don’t know when it will happen, but that is what you are dreaming about.”
The 22-year-old was born in Torsby and represented his local club before moving to IFK Gothenburg in 2003. Berg made his first team breakthrough in 2005 scoring 3 goals in 14 league appearances (8 starts) in his first season. The following season he scored 4 goals in 22 league appearances (10 starts) but it was the 2007/08 campaign when Berg showed his quality.
Berg scored an impressive 14 goals in 17 league appearances in his last season at Gothenburg which prompted his £2.5m move to Holland. He has now won 7 full international caps for Sweden and is highly-rated in his homeland as the best Swedish player since Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Berg is renowned for his aerial ability and two-footed finishing and would be a useful acquisition for a number of Premier League clubs including the English trio of Villa, Spurs and Everton. A reported fee of £5m was expecting to be enough to sign the striker but after such an impressive performance at the U21 European Championship that price tag is thought to have increased between £8m and £12m according to various reports.
Have you been impressed with the Swede? Would you like your club to sign him? Let’s hear your views.
Tags: Aston Villa, Everton, Groningen, Marcus Berg, Sweden, Tottenham, U21 European CHampionships
