Well I must say that I did not expect van Ginkel to come into the NT so fast. However I think van Gaal wanted to see him in training and just give van Ginkel a general taste of the senior team. I remember myself saying against Neeskens that I think van Ginkel will start pushing seriously at the beginning/middle of next season. Competition on midfield is not easy. Because Sneijder and vdV are locked for left midfield and so he is actually competing with Maher. On top of that with regulars as Strootman and Afellay, but also a guy like Fer. It is safe to say that it will be a tough affair for him. For right wing it would be interesting to see how Depay would do there. As Ola John is developing as a left winger at Benfica, I think we need another high caliber youngster to learn to operate in the right wing. Narsingh is a counter winger. That's why he was often not optimal for PSV, who push up often in Eredivisie and then the small spaces are hard to deal with for Narsingh. Narsingh can also be pretty quiet in a game. That having said, he does have something effective. He is like the reverse version of Elia. I think Elia looks very dangerous, but looking at his stats, not that much of an end result. Narsingh, scores and makes assists. He has a goal involvement almost every game.
^I guess there are conflicting reports of the starting line up. We will have to wait for game time to see who plays. If Vermeer is in goal it's his first senior NT match I believe. He was on the Olympic team in 2008.
Why must de Telegraph be right? Official lineup according to OnsOranje.nl: Kenneth Vermeer, Ricardo van Rhijn, John Heitinga, Ron Vlaar, Bruno Martins Indi, Nigel de Jong, Ruben Schaken, Ibrahim Afellay, Dirk Kuyt, Rafael van der Vaart, Arjen Robben.
As awful as this sounds, it could be very interesting. Playing without a true striker, possibly a lot of movement up front. Could make it interesting. However, it would be much better to have Affelay up front and Van Ginkel or someone in the mid...
Very slow paced match until the last five minutes or so. Dutch defense seems to be holding OK with a nice clearance by Heitinga to close the half out. Afellay has looked good but other than that nobody has really been lighting things up offensively. It will be interesting to see if there are substitutions to begin the 2nd half.
Schaken is the week link in attack (although Robben needs to move further out wide), de Jong is slowing down the midfield, but not doing bad for what he does, and Vlaar is the weekest defender. Martins Indi should be playing CB, not left back. Heitinga has saved more goals than Vermeer
Ive watched the 1st half very intently with special focus on 3 people. Van Der Vaart, Afellay & De Jong to see how the 3 Man Mid-field functions. Van Der Vaart was completely invisible & it did not matter if he stayed on the field or not. Sooner subbed the better. Afellay started bad, lost a couple of balls, grew in confidence & played a glorious pass to Robben, tried something. Allright Game. De Jong -> Horrid. The last rubbish clearance near the half time which resulted in almost the goal being open up summed it all. Not Deserving of Oranje Jersey. You Dont play a De Jong for Oranje. The whole point of playing a 4-3-3 having creative mid-fielders, not playing Douglas or CB's who pass get defeated when you have De Jong. Half the match I watched De Jong & specifically his positioning. This is where I think Strootman was brilliant in the single holding role in the 45 minutes he played, he was available for a pass. De Jong 50% of the time was not. And on the 5-10% times Afellay or VDV bothered to drop back De Jong had no sense or creativity to combine/position himself to add to the attack. This was the criticism in the Belgium match, Sneijder & VDV two ultra attacking CAM's not dropping back & DE Jong a complete defender making a 4-1-4-1. Its the same today. That is what I like about Van Ginkel,Clasie, Fer, Strootman. These are box TO BOX players who can DEFEND & ATTACK. They actually let you play a 4-3-3. About the rest. Schaaken was okay, missed an open pass to Robben, few okay crosses, passed his man.I mean did not anyone expect anything amazing from him?? Kuyt added nothing Hunter could not have, did not bother pressurizing the defenders. Robben was busy defending & supporting BMI. Vermeer was quick & a very VERY good Shot Stopped, 1 bad moment with the cross. That is what I fear, his brain farts & weak distribution. He is a Top Class Shot Stopper. CB's were average, very strong aerially especially Vlaar. Among the New Guys, I like Van Rhijn, BMI & Vermeer although Van Rhijn despite a couple of good plays & a great lobbed ball to VDV failed to get close to his man resulting in a very dangerous crosses
Boring game. The players not playing is one thing, the ref whistling is another. The second there is slight contact he stops the game. I think van Rhijn is having a sub par game. Good opening on Robben one time, but defensive he is weak. He is walking back and fake defending. Walking with his man, but letting him give the cross. Maybe Schaken could help out also ab it more, I don't know. Anyway van Rhijn needs to step up is defensive game. Heitinga 1 time very stupid giving the ball away. He does some proper work for the rest. Vlaar's processing of balls he needs to clear is never to a fellow man. Always blind away. He does his defensive job. BMI was clueless 1 time with a 1-2. Really childish. Afellay needed 6 seconds to finally play the ball to an offside van Rhijn. I mean make up your mind. For the rest was his through pass for the Robben chance also off side. Head up and pass sooner. VDV does his thing I guess. You really see he has no action on his own. Maybe he can distribute a bit better. Robben has not been involved or had any good personal actions. The chance he had should have gone in, even if it was off side. he did not know that at time he tried to kick it. Looked amateurish. Kuyt's distrubution as a dropping 9 stared as really poor. A thought crossed my mind that Maher in that position would be better. Then he picked up in the final 20 minutes and did a better job in this regard. The first part I cursed at him. he does look slow these days, doesn't he? Would have loved to play with Lens. To bad. Schaken did actually do some good things contrary to many others. he is able to have an action here and there and give the German left back something to think about. The problem is that there are few options to give the final pass to. Or better to say: no options. That must be improved in the second half. With this game type (counter attacking) we can better use another fast player in striker position. We can't create danger this way. Nice to see the old giants put in the sun light. Let's see what the second half brings.
Did van Ginkel even have a touch in the 2nd half? I was watching on my computer and it was hard to tell. Dutch had a couple of opportunities to score but couldn't get the job done. Both teams were pretty much going through the motions and I think 0-0 is a fair result for a worthless game. If there was ever an advertisement for not playing these friendlies this was certainly it. I don't think we really learned anything at all about any of the players other than Kuyt and Van der Vaart are over the hill.
I want two hours of my life back. Schaken isn't good enough, Period. I appreciate Kuyt's work ethic and his intelligence and team play (see his header back to tee up Afellay) but he really can't be playing striker against quality team like Germany. I don't mind having him play RW, but not striker. He disappeared for a lot of the game and no one took his place in the box when he dropped back. Robben was largely invisible. He needs to be instructed to stay wide. BMI isn't a winger and can't play like the auxiliary winger that you need if your winger is cutting in like Robben. Vlaar is absolute garbage on the ball, and didn't do anything impressive defensively either. Heitinga did much better and I have no idea why he was taken off instead of Vlaar Janmaat did better than van Rhijn de Jong broke up play nicely in midfield, but did nothing to put it together again in our favour. van Ginkel didn't do bad, but neither him or Emanuelson did much to make us more dangerous in attack, but I don't want to judge them too much based on this game. I think the main week links need to be removed before we can judge the impact of guys like them. A footballing DM and good wingers and van Persie will allow quality AMs to shine. Without those, everyone you put in AM will look mediocre.
I would like to see disjointed attacks & a 10 yard unconnected space between attack & defense being rectified. It was allright for a while in the 2nd half when Afellay dropped back. I was waiting to see Van Ginkel & Clasie play in the 2 Holding Roles creating play from the back. BMI is a CB anyway. He couldn't attack much but is MUCH MUCH more defensively better than Willems. Willems is good against a Mediocre team but is a Liability defensively & a BMI could atleast do passable against a Germany. And I fail to understand what Vlaar and De Jong other than muscles add to the team especially footballing wise. Mathijsen & Vlaar cant build up and are slow & Vlaar is prone to mistakes too. IF LVG is ready to go with 2 Right Footed CB's then IMO Douglas should be considered ahead of Mathijsen. Hopefully, Clasie-Strootman-Van Ginkel-Fer will get 50-60 minutes in the next half. More BOX to BOX players not CAM & CDM players, pure ALL-round Mid-fielders.
I'm disappointed for some choices. 1) Huntelaar on the bench 2) Kuyt as centre forward and not as winger 3) Still de Jong! he isn't anymore good for the national team. What does van Gaal has in his mind?
The only positive out of the match is that Afellay getting a run in midfield. This is a long time coming. He surely adds energy, quickness, and more importantly, initiative to attack. If he can improve in his ball distribution and cut down his sloppiness, I think he's a legit starter alongside a no. 10 (Sneijder). The quality went down a notch when Van Ginkel subbed in for Afellay. Van Ginkel was largely invisible and could not get into the game. Solid game by Vermeer and Heitinga. De Vrij did okay, no mistakes, but no contribution in the build-up, either. Hard to judge him by this meaningless game so I hope he gets more minutes in the future. Schaken, Vlaar, Vaart = pedestrian. Not what we need moving forward.
I think Schaken is getting too much slack. Schaken is a short term solution, but in the first half he was one of the better players. He at least did something. The van Ginkel case is a peculiar one. I have observed this phenomena quite some times now. Van Ginkel must be the least commanding player vs the quality's he has. You have players that with little presence still leave their mark on the game or are noticed. Van Ginkel on a day he does a lot still not reaches this. He is very anonymous as a player. That having said, he had 2 or 3 very good early interventions that pressed Germany further back. He also made a run where de Vrij should have chosen him for the through pass. Had this happened he would have been 1 vs 1 with the keeper. The best spell in the game came at the end, so I am not sure the football level dropped when he came in.