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It only emerged last night that Sunderland and Chelsea were trying to agree a fee for the Dutch left-back Patrick van Aanholt but Sunderland wasted no time in completing the deal as his signing was confirmed by the club earlier this evening.
Van Aanholt arrives at the Stadium of Light on a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee and becomes Sunderland's fourth new arrival of the summer, after Costel Pantilimon, Billy Jones and Jordi Gomez. He also becomes the first left-back to sign for the club on on a permanent basis since Roy Keane brought George McCartney back to Sunderland in 2008.
Gus Poyet made it clear after the 3-0 win at Hartlepool that he was looking for a left back to join the club as soon as possible and was also looking to add pace to the squad;
We don't have a left-back. We need a left-back now. We need pace, which we have been looking for for the last year.
In van Aanholt, Poyet has fulfilled both requirements with the Dutch defender having pace to burn, something that has been glaringly absent from the Sunderland squad for some time and his arrival will allow Billy Jones to return to his natural right-back position after filling in at left-back in both of his pre-season appearances so far.
The 23-year-old has spent the last two-and-a-half years on-loan from Chelsea at Eredivisie side Vitesse, where he impressed enough to be called up by Louis van Gaal for the Netherlands national team and after making his debut as a late substitute against Columbia in November of last year, did enough to make the provisional squad for the World Cup. Unfortunately despite another appearance in the pre-World Cup friendly with Ecudaor, he just missed out on the final 23-man squad.
Roker Report's own @GavinSAFC spoke to Koos Mooten of @VitesseInside, who told us what we can expect from van Aanholt.
Stay tuned to Roker Report throughout the summer as we keep you up to date with all the transfer news and rumours. Also, feel free to keep in touch with our dedicated Transfer Centre, which you can do by CLICKING HERE.
