Why Newcastle, West Ham & Leicester must avoid signing forward who sank England at all costs

It’s amazing how quickly a single, solitary goal can launch a player into the rumour mill – just ask Icelandic forward Jón Dagur Thorsteinsson, who scored the winning goal at Wembley less than two weeks ago and now finds himself linked with Newcastle United, West Ham United and Leicester City. It’s quite the heady rise up the rumour rankings for a man who scored just eight goals all season.

The Newcastle Chronicle is among the outlets picking up on the idea that Premier League sides might be interested in the 25-year-old, whose superb finish stunned England ahead of Euro 2024 and who could easily have scored at least once more during their 1-0 victory. But despite scoring against the national side, there is scant evidence that he would thrive in the English top flight.

Thorsteinsson, who spent four years on the books at Fulham as a youngster without playing a senior game, now plies his trade in Belgium with OH Leuven, for whom he has scored 19 goals over the course of two years and 71 games. That includes 12 Pro League goals in 2022/23, comfortably his most prolific season either in Belgium or in Denmark with AGF. In other words, he has yet to demonstrate more than decent goalscoring form at a lower level that the Premier League.

He does have plenty of attributes to recommend him, of course. He’s an extremely hard-working player who is highly effective in a pressing unit, winning plenty of turnovers and spending as much time as possible getting up defenders’ noses – something he did pretty effectively against England as well, when he made a couple of successful tackles and hassled and harried in suitably irritating manner.

He's also hugely versatile – he most commonly plays as a left-sided forward but has played all over the front three and in deeper roles in midfield. One gets the impression of a player who is unlikely to kick up a fuss about playing in his favoured role and is simply happy to get stuck in wherever he can, as often as he can.

But he doesn’t score goals in huge volumes, he isn’t a great technician, doesn’t set a vast number of goals up (his seven Pro League assists in 37 games was a career best) and nor is he especially impressive physically, being neither especially quick nor strong. There is, in short, a reason he didn’t make the cut at Craven Cottage.

Since that disappointment, Thorsteinsson has carved out a very respectable career for himself and earned 37 caps for his country (his goal against England was his fifth), and he ended the Belgian season on excellent form, scoring in each of the last three games. He plays with heart on his sleeve and seldom leaves the field without appearing to have given everything of which he is capable, but therein lies the rub – he doesn’t have the kind of numbers behind him which suggest he can make the leap up to the Premier League.

It may be that none of the three teams supposedly interested in him and taking all that close of a look. Scoring a memorable goal at Wembley is enough to make a player the flavour of the month in the gossip columns sometimes, and there is a definite lack of detail surrounding the claims – no price tag, for starters. This may be a bit of hearsay.

Or perhaps it’s a few teams looking for some depth options who have seen him score a few games on the bounce while working himself to the bone and decided to take a closer look. And what they will see is a fine player for Iceland and one who would probably be a fine player at around Championship level – but it’s hard to imagine him, with the number of goals and assists he’s managed in Denmark or Belgium, making the difference as Newcastle or West Ham push for European football next season. Perhaps he’ll prove us wrong. After all, we wouldn’t be the first Englishmen he’s silenced this summer.