Dutch football, when the dust (almost) settles….

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by Jan

The Dutch competition is on its way and most other competitions have followed suit.

Oranje will commence it’s qualifications journey soon and there is more than enough talking points.

We’ll do this one quick and dirty. And get on with more Oranje related articles after this one.

But the European adventures of our Dutch teams prompt some comments.

For starters, PSV seems unlucky to have drawn AC Milan. Any lesser opponent and the frivolous Cocu team might have had a real chance. They still do, of course. 1-1 is not that bad a starting position for the away game, but I think Milan will have learned their lesson and PSV will be brushed aside in the San Siro.

I might have to eat my words in 5 days and I’d be happy to :-).

Feyenoord, in the meantime, really looks in trouble. The consummate pro that is Ronald Koeman has no clue how to handle these situations and seems the first to criticise his players via the media, where the players are not allowed to make any comments in the press. The rules clearly don’t apply to Koeman. It is really key for Koeman to get this right, real fast. The season for Feyenoord (and indirectly Oranje) might depend on his ability to pull his team together.

ricky scores

Ricky scores everywhere….

 

Ajax doesn’t have any real issues. Yet. The CL is not starting till later for them and there is no real competition in the Eredivisie for them, bar PSV.

And I personally believe Eriksen and Alderweireld will leave the club which will not make Ajax any stronger (bar the bank account).

Gertjan Verbeek is doing well with AZ. He had a good draw of course, compared to Feyenoord, but his new team (Maher and Altidore left, which is a big thing) has done really well already. I expect some firework from AZ this season.

Internationally, some of our players are out with injury (Hunter, Strootman, Narsingh, De Guzman, Janmaat), and others are not in the picture due to lack of form and/or rhythm ( Fer, Sneijder, De Jong, Ola John).

Van Gaal likes to work with youngsters, players he can ‘control’. He added Rekik and Bruma to the squad based on their good work in the first matches for PSV. Stijn Schaars is back too and so are Clasie and Van Wolfswinkel. Clasie’s return is remarkable as the youngster had an abyssmal start with Feyenoord but Fer/De Guzman/Strootman/De Jong not in the picture has everything to do with that.

Wesley Sneijder again not selected is quite logical. Sneijder had only one competitive game with Gala, and although he played well, it is clearly not enough for Van Gaal. And it would be a bit silly to invite him back in after one good performance.

As was stated on the blog earlier, Van Ginkel could have chosen to play for Ajax, and he would have had 3 matches under his belt, instead of the 2 x 8 minutes he has now. For now, LVG seems to accept this, but once Strootman and Fer are back in the picture, the former Vitesse man will be in trouble if he doesn’t add some minutes fast.

Jose+Mourinho+Marco+van+Ginkel+Chelsea+v+Hull+4-bkDXcqXvFl

This coming weekend, some more exciting fixtures…

Fulham vs Arsenal… how will Stekelenburg hold up…

Hull – Norwich….Ricky Wolf and Leroy Fer

Newcastle – West Ham….. Krul and Anita

Aston Villa – Liverpool…. Vlaar

Blackpool – Reading…. Fan fave Roy Drenthe 🙂

Verona – AC Milan…. Urby and Nigel

Bayern vs Nurnberg…. Robben

Hertha vs Hamburg…. Rafa van der Vaart

Tottenham vs Swansea…Vorm, De Guzman

Augsburg vs Stuttgart….Verhaegh

Feyenoord vs NAC…. BMI, Clasie, De Vrij

Ajax vs Heerenveen….(De Boer vs Van Basten)

ManU vs Chelsea….. RVP, MVG

13 x 90 minutes of football…. not bad….

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  2. Van Ginkel is screwed. Willian just signed for Chelsea – yet another midfielder, and a high priced one at that (hence someone who will be given priority). Another harsh but predictable lesson for those leaving the Dutch league too early.

    1. Chelsea play 4-2-3-1.

      Primary options in DM they have:

      * Mikel
      * Essien
      * Lampard
      * Ramires
      * van Ginkel

      Secondary options for DM:

      * Oscar
      * De Bruyne
      * Luiz

      Primary options in the 3 behind the striker they have:

      * De Bruyne
      * Schürrle
      * Moses
      * Oscar
      * Mata
      * Hazard
      * And now Willian

      Secondary options for spot in 3 behind striker:

      * van Ginkel (against Hull)
      * Lmapard (moved up against Villa after the sub IIRC)

      I think the purchase of Willian will marginally effect van Ginkel. He would not have gained many minutes as a 10 anyway. Would have been nice if he had that spot as an extra possibility to gain minutes, but they are pretty stacked there anyway. If Mou goes for Khedira, then we are dealing with a Code Red situation. This one I am pretty cool about for now.

  4. One more thing. I think the love of Mou so far for Ramires and Lampard are a problem for van Ginkel. Had Mou loved to play his Mikel’s and Essien’s, then a pairing with van Ginkel would allow Marco to make more deep runs and get his name on the score board. Mou has used him as a wall and possession recycler last game (and in pre season often as well), while he is much more. I would even say that his passing is not even his forte.

    Lampard has now played 2 full games in a short time. That could mean he will not play on Monday as he is getting older. If Mou will use one of Mikel or Essien for stability and security reasons, then van Ginkel is only dealing with Ramires for the runner slot who has also played 2 games shortly one after the other. I don’t think Marco will start with such a big game (United away) but here is hoping on some more minutes than so far. Like a 66 minute sub.

  5. I really do not agree that PSV got the worst by playing Milan. I strongly feel that any other team would be a tougher match considering past history as well. Milan is nowhere near to a powerhouse anymore. With a little more precision PSV could be going to Milan with a 3-1 advantage. PSV can still make it if all players are 100% concentrated. It is 50-50 in my opinion. I refuse to believe PSV won’t score at least once but here’s hoping for a 2-2 draw 🙂

  6. I am quite okay with Van Ginkel being eased in to the first team, i.e. getting garbage minutes as sub, playing in League cup/FA cup, etc. This is much better, versus being thrown straight away to line of fire. The expectation would have been too high if he started, especially in big matches. One mistake way from being doomed and disappeared forever. (Remember, Van Persie was brought up very slowly also in his early Arsenal days).

    All things considered, the pecking order in front of MvG is not that daunting. Essien and Lampard will get less and less minutes as their bodies are declining. Mikel has been constantly rumored to be out the door soon (falling out already with Mou?). Ramires is probably the only one who has some sort of security. I’d say, give Van Ginkel a year to get acclimated and develop. If he doesn’t make glaring mistakes, I think by winter break, he’ll get more minutes and maybe speed up Chelsea’s decision to ship out Mikel (and/or Essien).

    The “loser” in this Willian deal is, I am afraid, De Bruyne. Performance-wise, he is probably catching up fast with his peers, but I think Mou would want to play his big guns (Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Schürrle) more often than not in order to justify their transfer fees. Same with Mata if he stays, Mou would want to make a point that he wants to keep Mata.

  8. Heerenveen – Ajax

    Superb comeback by the home team! Went down 0-2 in the first 20 minutes, but leading the match after 45 minutes.

    Ajax outfield players today vs. Heerenveen:

    5 – Danish
    1 – Belgium
    1 – Icelandic
    1 – Finnish
    1 – Spanish

    1 – Dutch

    Ugh..!?!!

    On a more positive note, I liked 19 y.o Hakim Ziyech. Energizer-bunny-like player. Very fluid and quick. Highlight of the match so far was his assist for the second Heerenveen’s goal. He sent a one-touch magical overhead pass to release Finnbogason clear on goal.

    2. For a long time I have been disappointed in Ajax line-ups,and this time there are 5 Danish players. So yeah…Ugh.

      That Ziyech kid,he is 20 years old,Maroccan descent,but called for Netherlands U21 I think.
      Great left foot,great free kicks,very good technique,amazing vision so far and passing.Made for the number 10 position.
      He looks very weak in duels though…
      He was for me the best player on the field for Heerenveen in the first 3 matches besides Finnbogason. And now 2 assists against Ajax.

  9. What a horrible match for Ajax
    without Siem de Jong they dont know how to play football?
    I have no idea what the heck is Poulsen doing.
    Bojan and Fischer have zero contribution at all.
    If not Eriksen the score would be 3-0

  10. I usually understand football pretty well ( I think) but I don’t get how Chelsea operate…

    They have Torres, Ba, Lukaku and apparently they also want Rooney??

    Why does Mourinho need to buy all these players? Does he believe he can field 14 in CL games? It will be very hard to 1) forge a good solid TEAM out of this while playing matches and 2) the dressing room will be filled with expensive egos who want to play…. How can you expect players to “settle” if they know the next striker will be signed if he doesn’t score in the next 90 minutes?

    I can’t see a team performing well in those circumstances. All teams that have won silverware AND compliments in the past 5 years ( Man U, Bayern, Barca) have a coach that offers confidence in a certain 13 or 14 players and sticks to those players. All the teams that buy like crazy have difficulty establishing a solid list of performances. Real Madrid, Chelsea, Spurs….

    1. Yeah this mentality put me off when the Dutchies went to Madrid and where kicked out again 1 or 2 years later. You either deliver silverware or have to leave, being the strong or the weak point in the team. On top of that, Perez used the Dutchies to win the elections (look at how bad the decisions from the former president have been) and irrationally wanted them all out. With Ronaldo on the left and Robben on the right he basically could have done years ago what he is doing now with Bale and Ronaldo. Sneijder in the middle would have been what they have now with Isco/Ozil. Could have been a top team, but he wanted to kick them out and committed discrimination in the process IMO. What a disgusting man that is.

      At Chelsea they simply fired the man that delivered them their first CL title after failing to advance from the CL group stages. No coach is safe there or is given time to build, just like in Madrid. Players are used as one gold layer on the next one without regard for the group process often.

    2. Apart from that i think Clubs doesnt want others to sign a particular good player .what if Manchestr sign MVG??what is isco signed for Barca.they dont want to do that.These freaking plastic club cheslki,real shitrid and Manmshitty are insult to football.they have money and they buty everything and on the road spoiling carrers of players and making league predioctable.by doing that killing football.All signing have a hidden ajenda too,they dont wannt those players in opponet teams this makes compettion harder for them…FU334king mony minded A@##hles.

  11. Talent Slabbekoorn has signed with Feyenoord today. Earlier this year Paal signed also a contract with PSV. So these guys won’t go to England anytime soon luckily. Here is a video (not the latest by the way) where both play against each other and also score:

    http://tinyurl.com/lk662hx

    Right from the start in blue we see a player fooling some Feyenoord players. I can’t see his number but I think that is Paal. Nice bit of skill. Rest of the video they do mention the names when they get the ball.

    Paal (PSV),Slabbekoorn (Feyenoord) and Nouri (Ajax) are interesting players to keep an eye on.

    Cheers

  12. A lot of Icelandic players are doing very well in the Eredivisie in recent years. I’d say at the rate they are going they’ll probably make Euro 2016. Finngobason looks set to compete with Sigthorson for the Eredivisie golden boot.

    1. Too bad that striker from AZ chose to play for the USA. With the expansion to 24 teams and this generation coming up, they should absolutely be taken serious to make it.

      Kind of hoped they would make the WC 2014. That would be something.

      1. Ya, especially because they got a fairly weak group, Switzerland as a top seed, or maybe it was Norway. Either way, they could make it, and should be fighting for a play-off spot.

  13. Robben is the best player of the world at the moment!!! did anyone watched his goal today? it was magnificent.

    Ferenc once told me that he had the theory that Robben under Guardiola could become the best player of the world because of the system Guardiola uses and maybe that theory is already happening 😉 I hope so.

  14. Goal Arjen Robben
    MAGNIFICENT FROM ROBBEN! The Dutchman beats three players with brilliant ease on the right before squeezing a deft finish past Schafer and inside the far post!

  23. PSX Starting 11 is all Dutch and all except Schaars under 23 y o . 😀

    Jeroen Zoet 22
    Joshua Brenet 19
    Jeffrey Bruma 22
    Karim Rekik 19
    Jetro Willems 19
    Florian Jozefzoon 22
    Stijn Schaars 29
    Georginio Wijnaldum 23
    Adam Maher 20
    Memphis Depay 19
    Jürgen Locadia 20

    1. yeah. Cocu trains them 6 days per week which is too much I think .
      It also seems their lack of concentration is due to thinking about Milan game ,4 days later.

  27. Another foolish mistake from Depay leads to a Heracels goal , similar to Milan game .
    Depay should learn to stop these mistakes if he wants to join Oranje soon .
    Nice goal by Duarte .

  28. Milan loses to verona 2-1 in their calccio start.
    I’m sure PSV in a good day can make it .
    BTW , verona is newly promoted to calccio this season. They were in serie B last season.

  39. This guy Duarte was all over the pitch…PSV problem was locadia,Jozefoon and Depay.things would change against milan if bakali,matavz comes in first two and park for depay.Sure PSV can beat milan in milan.Maher’s accuracy is questionable and easily get outmuscled.cannot blame schaars,wijnaldum,Reikik,bruma,brenet and park.rest of them were terrible.
    I think when u have 2 shit players upfront(locadia and Jozfoon) u cannt string 2 passes together.Wijnaldum and Schaars faced a terrible physical approach by heracles players.it was a tough game.

  40. With Memphis depay it seems as he is making some mistakes which stop his game as a whole progressing. How much of a problem do you all think this is (drb and co..) because he hasn’t really had a good run in with the team yet and last season he was unable to even fight for a place with cowardly dick in charge

  41. [Update] Cocu gaf na afloop voor de camera van Fox Sports aan dat Wijnaldum na een tik bij het neerkomen door zijn enkel ging. ‘We zullen morgen moeten bekijken hoe het er voor staat.’ Cocu heeft nog enige hoop voor Milan, aangezien de enkel van te voren goed was ingetapet. ‘Maar Milan komt wel erg snel.’

    He has an ankle injury but it was taped up before the game so it might not be too bad. Cocu still has hope he can play at Milan, but it remains to be seen if he will heal fast enough.

  42. After seeing that goal from Robben, it is even more inconceivable that LVG continues to play on the left. These football guys really lack brain power. I don’t care how much he knows about football, but LVG should learn a little about spatial physics and know that a left footed player will run out of space on the left whereas he will not on the left. Maybe we should send him back to school.

    1. The problem with using inverted wingers is that the play starts crowding towards the center. When that happens, it can stifle runs from deeper in the midfield. Yes, Robben might run out of room on the left, but he makes space for a runner from midfield. That’s one more man to receive a cross or to play a combination off of.

      Besides, it was LVG who played Robben on the right at Bayern to begin with. I’m pretty sure he knows what Robben is capable of. He’s given Robben the discretion to switch flanks when appropriate, so I don’t feel that Robben is being misused.

  43. The latest rumour has Atletico Madrid interested in both Toby Alderweireld and Cristian Eriksen. If Ajax wants to advance deep into CL, they need to keep them. If not they can forget about CL and just focus on Eredivisie.
    Robben scored a wonderful goal. No doubt about his talent and I just hope he stays healthy for the WC. I just wish LVG reads the game and switch 2 wingers (left to right and right to left) if he needs to. When Ronaldo is not doing well on one wing, he switches to another. I’m not saying it will work all the time but it is worth to try.

  44. Crucial question will bakkali start against Psv??? How far is narsingh from training with the team…the faster Psv can start bakkali matavz narsingh up front the better…depay is clearly nothing more than an impact sub even at the eredivisie level

    1. His last two-three games were too bad , his mistakes leaded to conceding 2 crucial goals in 2 different games , which make the fans question his mentality , talent , behavior .. etc.
      I’m worried about him , he started the season really good then his performance declined a lot. I still have great hopes for him actually , let’s wait and see how things go with him in the next few games.
      Bakkali against Milan is still doubtful , same with Heijlmark and unfortunately after yesterday’s game , Wijnaldum.

  45. Another sad news is that leory fer and ricky wolf is playing with some mediocre players of norwich.they need good intellignet team mates to perform well.whihc sadly tey dont have they are fucked up……..norwich players doesnt have any vision or intellignce.they dont even have skills to dribble one man.poor leroy and Wolf..

  46. Cmon guys, this psv are the youngest squad in many years, they only played together for 2 months, i think your expectation is way too high. I dont think 19years old robben did not make bad decision in the past, so i would expect cocu, not stopping give a chance to depay/ locadia/ brenet etc.

    1. PSV is young and it is understandbale that they will make mistakes.but when i saw roben first time for PSV i nvere felt he lacks intelligence or skill.that is the problem here…

      1. I don’t think Depay lacks skill. I think he has too much of it and needs to learn when to use them and when to be a team player. Robben lacked a right foot when he was 18 years old and was a cry baby.

        A lot of people didn’t see it in: Frank Rijkaard, Richard Witsgche, Ronald de Boer, Marc Overmars, Bolo Zenden, Gerald Vanenburg, Wim Rijsbergen, Wim Suurbier. All iconic names today.

        3. i saw roben cryibng as if he lost Wc after missing out shot purely due to lack of luck by Casillas toe.he was 27 that time..roben was a cry babe..i hope it changed now.it has nothing to do with age.Depay is not a cry babe.Guy is strong..

  47. Clasie with two assists in the 1st half already, Pelle with two goals. Feyenoord having their best game this season. Good for them. Arminteros is really good , will help them a lot this season.

  48. Finally some positives from Feyenoord. I really enjoy when De Vrij fakes the passage to the keeper and then runs into the midfield. Martins Indi plays much safer in possession. I like defenders who create game and to do so you ought to risk a little.

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