And no, the answer is not Marten de Roon or Daley Blind.
When in doubt, always check Pieter Zwart‘s analysis on VI Pro. You wonder why Koeman hasn’t added the master analyst to his staff.
So we played two friendlies and were only able to score from the spot.
Frustrating. We travel to the US with arguable a stronger defensive line up than we had in 2010 or 2014, a more than decent midfield but with a lame attacking front line.
Donyel Malen scored for fun in Italy, true. But Memphis hardly played for the number 10 club of Brazil. Gakpo had a disappointing season at Liverpool. Summerville got relegated. Noa Lang was benched both at Napoli and at Gala.
Weghorst was dramatic at Ajax and Brobbey did ever so well but couldn’t score more than 7 times for Sunderland. Flemming got 11 goals for relegated Burnley but was overlooked. The best scoring player in the squad is actually late addition and midfielder Guus Til.
No Makaay, Van Nistelrooy, Kluivert, Hasselbaink, Van Hooydonk, Huntelaar or Van Persie this time around.
Still, one can’t say that there is no quality upfront. Pieter analysed the games and came up with 4 reasons why Oranje is struggling in front of goal.
Creating Chances and Missing them
It’s a mantra we heard from Arne Slot at LFC as well: we don’t convert our chances. When we went to the Euros, two years ago, we scored 8 goals in 2 warm up matches (Canada and Iceland). Now we only scored 2 and from the spot.
But when we look at the expected goals in all four matches, we see that these are almost the same. Total of 5.7 in the run up to the Euros ( and scoring 8) and 6.8 (!!) against Algeria and Uzbekistan, but only scoring 2.
This supports Koeman’s claim: we create well, but finish poorly.
Some people claim the Orange jersey is too heavy for Malen. But that is nonsense. At Roma he scored a similar conversion ratio ( 14 goals out of 14 expected goals) as he did in his best year in Eindhoven, which is comparable to his run in Oranje. And at Roma, not every chance was a goal for him either.
Creativity
This is a big one. The space for Oranje to play in is usually not that great. And in those situations we need creativity in the final third. In the 5 top competitions in Europe, the top dribbler is Yamal with 133 successful dribbles. Diomande has 118, Vinicius 87 and Doku 84.
The first Dutchie in the list is Summerville, with 51. He is on spot 31. Gakpo is the next one on spot 101 with 31 successful dribbles. Summerville is pushed inside by Koeman, to make way for Dumfries, so he will have less options to dribble. For this reason, Koeman felt the team was too slow to find Gakpo.
Gakpo is the only Oranje player who created more than 50 chances in a top league. Frenkie de Jong did this for the midfielders. And this is the issue with our midfield. They are good build up players (passers) but not great in the final assist in the final third.
In my view, our three midfielders are a bit too much the same. Uzbekistan played very compact and that stopped our team from finding solutions. A player like Kluivert, or Kees Smit (arrrghhh) or even Quinten Timber might be the solution here.
Positioning
Frenkie immediately analysed the game and the problems after the Uzbek match. The always self-critical midfielder was critical on the team, but indirectly also on his coach: “We need to create patterns, we need to fix some details now and then it will look better.”
The box Koeman so adores, didn’t help against Cannavaro’s Uzbekistan, as the crowded midfield was easy to block for them. And the coach was warned ( by the same Pieter Zwart) that the box won’t work well versus a 5 man at the back opponent.
The Uzbeks had 5 at the back to cover for Gakpo, Malen, Reijnders, Summerville and Dumfries and two holding mids to stop Frankie and Gravenberch. We had three defenders opposite one lone striker.
Frenkie and Ryan kept on making moves to become open and playable, but then others needed to move as well, to make something happen, whether it’s a change in position or a run deep. But that didn’t happen. Too static and the anchors were easily put under pressure again.
There were situations where Frenkie dropped deep to pick up the ball and in those situations, Van de Ven can move forward to stretch the opponent and bring more balance, as we were understaffed up front. But the Spurs defender stayed in his spot (maybe due to Koeman’s orders).
And so, Summerville and Reijnders ended up in the upper side of the box and both players made forward runs at the wrong times, cramping space close to Malen and not allowing a passing option for the central defenders/Frenkie, as the space in between the lines was vacated. Oranje was only threatening in the turn around, as a result, which makes sense.
The difference between static football and flowing football is sometimes a matter of a few yards.
Substitutions
In both games, the first 30 minutes were more than decent and resulted in chances. And then it sort of collapsed. Against Algeria, the subs didn’t help. In the final stages, Holland played with Kluivert as left winger, Depay as 10 and Weghorst as a 9 with Koopmeiners on the right.
Even Andrea Bocelli wouldn’t pick that line up. Against Uzbekistan, Koeman kept it civil and only changed Malen for Brobbey, who scored a good goal, but it was disallowed.
The facts tell us that at the last four World Cups, around 60% of all goals are scored in the second half. During the last Euros, the number of goals by substitutes was historically high: 21%.
Will Koeman keep his eye on this? Because now, Koeman seems to use his quickest players (Malen, Summerville and Gakpo) while the opponent’s defenders are still fresh.
My conclusions: when we play against a low block, we might need Malen on the right and Brobbey with his physique in the starting line up. Around minute 60, it might work to bring in Summerville. Koeman can decide if it’s for Malen or Brobbey. Lang could be the option for Gakpo.
Against stronger teams who want to dominate ( Spain? England? Portugal?) I would consider playing a 4-4-2, with Summerville and Gakpo or Malen and Gakpo up front and Kluivert as false 9.
Anyway… the clock is ticking, soon we will know more…. the butterflies are starting….
Malen needs to start to make goals and maybe adjust midfiled, bring Kluivert for Gravenbergh/Reijnders…
Agree with a lot of what was said. What’s really worrying is this team hasn’t scored from open play in three straight games, and that’s a bad trend before a high profile WC opener for the team. I usually like to play lesser opposition in the first game, but we will be straight into a tough one from the start.
Malen’s may have done well at Roma, but he doesn’t seem mentally confident at all. Strikers need that aura where they score regularly and even make something out of half chances. As most of us agree, Koeman picks favorites over current form. He’s stubbornly avoids giving new players chances even when guys like Memphis are past their prime. He should have given a chance to other forwards. Summerville only got called up for these last friendlies after tons of qualification games he could’ve been in. Frimpong should not have been dropped. This is a long tournament with a new Round of 32 stage. He could have been available if the team made it to the Round of 16 or the QF.
My other concern is that, you can see the team doesn’t really string together more than three forward passes in a row. It’s not free flowing. The midfield needs more diagonal and forward passes, and the forwards need that innate communication to run into open spaces and be ready. And finally, I see some players are not really giving it their all. There some complacency from some players because of Koeman’s selection. Gravenbech kinda disappears at times. He’s very talented but he seems to play in spurts. Reijnders also has the same problem. Guardiola dropped him for most of the 2nd half of the season. He’s still a great player, but effort and production has to be for 90 mins.
Japan’s game will be the real test. That will tell us a lot of where this team is. And possibly how far they can go. We should’ve played a warmup against South Korea instead of Uzbekistan since they play that similar up-tempo style like Japan does. There are 6 games scheduled on Sunday. Anyways, we shall see.
There is an uncanny similarity in the playing styles of the two teams that I follow: Oranje and Everton. Lack of more than 3-4 forward passes, continuous lateral and back passes, slow build up, eventually a long ball aimed at a lone striker who is obviously outnumbered. Decent but aging defense and midfielders who come in each others way.
Most importantly: a stubborn coach who plays favorites and simple refuses to play young talent.
This Oranje side should give up playing creative and play the low-block and counter attack with the two speedy guys (Summerville and Malen). Brobbey should be the CF.