Newcastle United this evening announced the signing of 14-cap Moroccan international defender Achraf Lazaar from Serie A side Palermo for an undisclosed fee, as per the club website.
24-year-old Lazaar has put pen to paper on a five-year deal that sees the rated young left-back swap Italy’s Serie A and Palermo for a drop down in divisions to the Sky Bet English Championship with the Magpies.
Lazaar came up through the youth set up of Italian side Varese, making his way into the first-team reckoning for the 2011/12 season. After two years in the Varese first team, a loan deal was struck with Palermo for a fee of £255,000 that saw Lazaar move on a half-season loan ahead of what proved to be a permanent transfer as the Moroccan signed on fully as a Palermo player at the opening of the summer 2014 transfer window for a fee of £595,000.
Lazaar spent two seasons in Serie A with Palermo making 76 appearances, scoring three goals and providing six assists. He becomes Newcastle’s eleventh signing and is understandably happy at the move to England. Speaking on the club website the young Moroccan said: “I am very happy to be at Newcastle United,” said Lazaar. I’m proud to sign here because Newcastle is a great team in England.”
Achraf Lazaar – factfile and typical performance
Factfile
- Born: January 22, 1992 – Casablanca
- Height: 1m 84cm / 6ft ½in
- International caps: 14
- International début: May 16, 2014 vs Russia (friendly)
Performance across typical 90 minutes (stats taken from player profile – WhoScored.com)
- Tackles: 2.3 successful from 3.4 attempted (67.6% success rate)
- Interceptions: 1.6
- Clearances: 1.6
- Blocks: 1.9 (inc. 1.1 blocked passes)
- Total Defensive Actions: 7.4
- Passes: 28.6 completed from 32.6 attempts (87.7% accuracy)
- Key Passes – leading to shots: 0.7 (2.4% completed passes end as chances)
- Dribbles: 1.4 completed from 2.8 attempted (50% success rate)
- Possession Loss: 1.7 bad touches/1.4 dispossessed
