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‘I had 11 beautiful years at Newcastle, but I’m a Brighton player now and I know I need to show everyone I’m back to where I was,’ says Tim Krul.
‘I had 11 beautiful years at Newcastle, but I’m a Brighton player now and I know I need to show everyone I’m back to where I was,’ says Tim Krul. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images via Reuters
‘I had 11 beautiful years at Newcastle, but I’m a Brighton player now and I know I need to show everyone I’m back to where I was,’ says Tim Krul. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images via Reuters

Tim Krul keen to prove point for Brighton after Newcastle exit

This article is more than 6 years old
The Dutch goalkeeper’s career has faltered since serious injury two years ago, but he is determined to recapture his best form on the south coast

Rafa Benítez’s ruthless streak is rarely evident these days but a notable manifestation occurred in the summer when Tim Krul and Jack Colback, two unwanted Newcastle United players, were banished to train with the juniors.

Colback remains in unhappy exile at the academy but Krul took the hint and eventually secured a deadline-day move to Brighton & Hove Albion. Reunited with Chris Hughton, his old manager at St James’ Park, the erstwhile Holland goalkeeper hopes to make a first Premier League start for his new club when Benítez’s team visit the south coast on Sunday afternoon.

Few Newcastle fans question their manager’s judgment, particularly not at a time when his decidedly un-starry side are riding high in the table on the back of three straight league wins, but Krul’s exit prompted disappointment. “It was a professional decision,” says Benítez, recalling that, when he succeeded Steve McClaren, the Dutchman was sidelined by the ruptured cruciate ligament he suffered playing for Holland in October 2015.

That awkward fall on an ice-coated artificial pitch in Kazakhstan in effect marked the end of Krul’s career on Tyneside. Although Newcastle extended the contract of one of their highest earners until 2018, a loan move to Ajax in August 2016 proved calamitous, with a still unfit goalkeeper failing to make a first-team appearance.

In January, he headed to AZ Alkmaar on another loan, this time making 16 appearances. “For five months at AZ we were monitoring him,” Benítez says. “We decided we would look for different options. That was a professional decision. I told him that, to play, he would have to find a new club. He knew I was looking for a highly experienced goalkeeper in the summer. In the end we couldn’t do that but we already had enough keepers and I knew Rob Elliot [the current No1] had Premier League experience.”

Krul privately felt his relocation to the academy displayed a lack of respect but, unlike Colback, who rejected moves to Hull and Wolves, the 29-year-old decided it was best to move on.

Allied to the size of his salary, the seriousness of that knee injury meant clubs were not queuing up to recruit a once much-coveted goalkeeper and it took Brighton’s late intervention for him to find a new home. Krul, though, delighted in confounding the doubters with an impressive albeit losing debut at Bournemouth on Tuesday, Brighton going down 1-0 after extra-time in the Carabao Cup. “Tim was very assured, very good,” Hughton said.

Brighton’s manager subsequently said that an initial loan had been turned into a free transfer and Krul was in contention to challenge Maty Ryan, the Australia keeper who has started the season as Hughton’s first choice after joining from Valencia.

“I had 11 beautiful years at Newcastle,” Krul says. “But I’m a Brighton player now and I know I need to show everyone I’m back to where I was.”

Benítez could do without his former employee proving too renascent on Sunday.

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