Better from the mids, noticeable higher concentration after getting bailed out from Zoet. God Arnautovic is annoying, good battle with Tete so far
For those in the US, ESPN3 has a nice feed. I just tuned in, having promised my wife a match of Scrabble which I won 318-317!!! Just in time to see the very clumsy challenge by Bazoer (he really needs a lot of work on all aspects of his game). At least they didn't concede a goal on the two free kicks. BTW - If you think Blind is a bad NT coach be blessed that you don't have Jurgen Klinsman! I don't get why the US Federation keeps him on; he is just so bad!!! I guess he's still living off of his performance with the German NT back in 2006.
Another fun game. At least it is entertaining. 4 pages of notes that I will not share all. However, first of all, Netherlands has stopped to be a possession team? Yes, I know this started earlier, but it is now more clear than ever. At the WC we still had some and it was a model to deal with a loss of a player like Strootman. Now we are in build up phase and it looks like we really are handing over possession. We are a reaction team under Blind. Yes? So another things was Strootman in the first 20 or 30 minutes. He let his man run away from him. I like his hard passing, but his mobility sucks. The duel between Tete and Arnoutovic. Lovely. I do think Tete gave him 3 or 4 tims too much space to cross and create danger. Needs to het that cross out. Other than that, I like it. His attacking cross must improve. It was certainly 2 times a fluff that the attackers could not do something with. Zoet had a super safe. His kicks are ok-ish, but had 1 ball that went over the Promes sideline. Bruma's short passing or better said, football solution passing is atrocious. Always dumb balls. Looks resolute, but is just stupid. Defending is better than his passing Dijk. What was that lovely ball control at the end so that Stroot could go on? Lovely. Pretty oke for the rest I think. PVA, meh. Some bad attacking set up touches when we were building up towards a chain. Stupid foul 1 time. Not impressed so far Stroot was a real risk in how he let his man go away. As I said, his passing is lovely, though 2 misspasses at the end. Bazoer is so afraid to pass with adventure. Still behind the man at times, killing tempo. He has passion in this game and had some very useful fouls. However he also allowed Alaba to shoot 2 times in quick succession and another time he gave him a judo throw that could have ended in a free kick/penalty with other ref. He still has to do better on and off ball. Wijnaldum. I have not seen him. He is the least dominant 10 in NT history. Berghuis had another cross for a goal. Same weird silent way how that played out. Everybody looking around what is going on. Outside of that moment, his free kick cross and free kick shot on goal sucked. His passing to chain something sucks and he has no speed. Neither could he control a pass from Janssen for an attack that called off, but the control was still not there. Janssen, works hard, scores. Oke. Promes, bit better, but shot on goal was bad, only the deflection made something from it. Needs to pose a bigger goal threat. Oke second half. Lets go.
I watch MLS/NWSL/USA when I can, but honestly you cant blame Klinsman anymore, he has provided more than enough arguments to get himself fired(a long time ago), you should look only at your federation. But somewhere I hope you dont, you make us dutchies look better.
Funny game, We're not playing that well and Austria has had good spells but we are up 0-2. Could have been two more.
van Ginkel should have had the goal as it was an easy header. How Bazoer stayed on the pitch was amazing to me. Two shirt pulls on Austrian attackers in the box that he did not defend well at all and neither was called on him. He is one lucky guy tonight. So we beat another team that was undefeated in their qualifying rounds and we are not going to France!!! The friendlies will certainly mean that Blind is the NT manager for the WC campaign. I wish him well and hope he succeeds.
Haha, how did Bazoer stay on? He could have had 2 red cards this game and a bunch of yellows. Well, a bit much maybe but he was lucky. We were lucky. I also think it was him that let his man go so Zoet got injured. Either him or Wijnaldum, I think Bazoer. His passing was also bad. Blind was having fun with him at the side line, like he played a really good game. This is weird.
Janssen has 3 goals in 5 matches. Not too shabby. Article on him: http://thesetpieces.com/world-football/vincent-janssen-profile-hero-netherlands-post-van-persie-era/ Oranje are undefeated in their last 4 matches. 3 wins, and 1 draw. They scored 7 goals and gave up only 3
What strikes me is that we are not dreadful to watch. There are patterns in our game all of the sudden. Against Poland and now also Austria. People notice. That fast forward pass and then back and then that person giving the launch pas, the key pass for a counter. I think we have now really chosen to be a reaction team. A counter team, with counter patterns that we execute well. Is this the AZ style of van Gaal in his last season at that club? That being said, with that in place, I wonder if we do not need more firefighter kind of midfielders. That can quickly react to a situation. Stroot is slow and Bazoer was not containing the situation well either. Wijnaldum is a ghost all game. Anita is quick. Negative is that I suspect that he does not really stick his foot out some times when Austria went through the middle. He would respond to runs better I think. We have not solved midfield yet.
Though van Ginkel should have scored, he was there to score. Stroot would not have been there. Bazoer neither. He quite simply gives a vertical dimension. Next time it is a goal. I have no idea why Stroot an van Ginkel can not play together. Anybody having an idea why Stroot and van Ginkel are set up to compete with each other? Why is Bazoer such a different profile that he does not get to compete with van Ginkel? What kind of balance does Blind have in mind?
Vilhena was poor as a sub. Narsingh as well. Vilhena has no radius. Was constantly too late for a meaningful frustration of the opponent and what was that ball behind Narsingh at the end? He did not make a statement with the minutes he got.
Game gets so slow with Luuk at the front. He did have a good lay off for the goal, mind you. Good assist, but all speed must be generated around him. That is the difference with Janssen. There is more possible frivolity up front with Janssen. More flow and things done that give speed to a game.
Promes had quite some bad passes, I even think his pass on Luuk that became a goal might have been misplaced, but this was a better game of him that before. He should have scored that chance on open goal. As bad as the van Ginkel miss, maybe worse.