Jonny Howson's Rav van den Berg premonition could go either way for Middlesbrough

Rav van den Berg of Middlesbrough
-Credit: (Image: Paul Currie/REX/Shutterstock)


Jonny Howson believes Rav van den Berg has the ability to go to the very highest level of football - which can prove to be either good news or bad news for Middlesbrough.

The defender is currently in his second season at Boro and already turned down opportunities to play at an elite level. He turned down clubs such as Juventus, Dortmund and AC Milan to move to the Riverside last summer, with playing games a priority for the mature Dutch teenager.

That decision seemed to pay off too, with Van den Berg excelling at Boro to win Player and Young Player of the Year awards last term. After enquiries throughout the summer, Van den Berg's insistence that it still wasn't the right time to move on meant that Boro were able to stick to their bullish stance that the centre-back wasn't for sale.

READ MORE: Liverpool struggles that help Middlesbrough more in their ambition to keep Rav van den Berg

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But Van den Berg will be expected to move on eventually, with the kind of clubs noted above still monitoring him closely as more and more top clubs keep a close eye on him. As far as Howson is concerned, the hype is real for the young Dutchman, as he made a bright precision for the Dutchman while including him in his fantasy seven-a-side team as part of an EFL feature.

Howson said: "I'll go with Rav. For his debut season, especially with how young he is - which I think you can easily forget at times - I thought he was unbelievable. The potential, going off last season, what he could go on to do, I think he can be anything he wants to be. He can go to the highest level."

Howson's premonition could end up being either good news or bad news for Boro - and likely depends on how successful this current season is. Boro will hope to keep Van den Berg at the Riverside for as long as possible - though the expectation is that one day he will outgrow the club and move on - albeit for a hefty fee that will represent huge profit for the club.

That's in-line with the club's current recruitment policy and typifies exactly what they try to do when signing assets like Van den Berg - with Championship profit and sustainability rules insistent on Boro bringing in additional revenue through player sales if they are to spend as big as they have recently in order to stay competitively.

While Boro were able to be bullish in their stance this summer over selling the likes of Van den Berg and also Hayden Hackney and Emmanuel Latte Lath. Head of football Kieran Scott has already admitted as such, saying earlier in the summer that 'we might have a problem' if he enjoys another great season but Boro fail to win promotion.

With Boro keen to grow and develop with their players, the hope will be that they can win promotion this season to give them a far better opportunity of keeping Van den Berg on Teesside for even longer. Not only will it mean enjoying his talent more, it will only further increase his future sell-on value too.

For what it's worth, Howson picked two other former Boro players in his side. He picked Darren Randolph in goal, describing him as a 'calming presence'. He then put Adama Traore in his midfield and described the Fulham forward as 'unbelievable'.