And, according to "who scored," he played 5 games at LB too this year. https://www.whoscored.com/Players/91744/Show/Pele-van-Anholt He is apparently the anti-Omar/Leonardo. They list his strengths as through balls and concentration and his weakness as aerial duels (he's just shy of 5'6").
Sounds a lot like a defender we use to have that was kinda short, but really smart and versatile. I think his name was AJ something or other...
I was going to make that comparison, but the knock on AJ is that he's really a CB in an outside back's body, which was why coaches keep trying to put him outside and why he fails to be quite as influential there, yet needs a certain type of CB to pair with (e.g., Omar) to work inside. This guy appears to be a pure outside back (although he may have played DM some).
Agree. As much as I love AJ, he was not good at making runs upfield and getting into the box. He is not an overlapping fullback. If he was just taller he would have been an amazing CB - he had the brains for it. This guy looks like the actual overlapping fullback we've been looking for. Hopefully he's good. And we have a glaring need with Nathan "beat like a drum" Smith out there.
I'm please that we're addressing the obvious need and he seems like an appropriate player. My one concern is that a young player from the Netherlands cannot be cheap. We must really have decided that we will be a European team and not a South American team in terms of international players.
Well he is out of contract so there's no worry about a transfer being spread out over the duration of his contract. My guess is you can pay him something similar to what Robbie Rogers was making.
Rooney is on his way out. He's not really taken great care of his body and he's been playing since he was 16, so he's an 'old' 30. I do not want him in the Gio role or midfield. He's passable as a midfielder with a couple of strong positional mids alongside him. Without that, see Stevie G and J. Jones. Running around like a blue-arsed fly until gassed and frequently looking to make the Hollywood Pass. He'll get a couple of highlight reel 40 yarders but will be a turnover machine 80% of the time. Up front he has the instincts to offer something at this level. I will say that though it's not well publicised, he's got a weird streaky factor to his play as a #9. He's gone from scoring 30 goals in a season, to significant gaps between goals, to serious barren spells, back to mammoth spells of goal scoring.
As an aside, it was nice to hear the Riot Squad break into AJ and "one of us" chants when we played Houston. Also amusing to hear Leonardo get the "LA reject" treatment in the same game.
The Netherlands, outside of the top few teams, is a pretty mediocre league and doesn't pay that much. The league's average pay is about $300k which is heavily skewed by PSV, Ajax, and Feyenoord which have budgets about 8 times what Willem II's budget is. Last year his team, Willem II, ended the season only two points from relegation (9-9-16, W-D-L). The top paid guys for Willem II probably make less than $250k. He's also 26 and that's not young. To be honest, I'm not overly excited about a guy from a low level Eredivisie club who is 26, much like I wasn't excited about Breinburg (though Breinburg would have been far more costly given a potential transfer fee). Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with signing him because he's on a free transfer, shouldn't be too expensive contract wise and even if he's mediocre he's still an upgrade at right back for us. I just want to manage expectations. At any rate, some background I was able to dig up: Turns out last year he was on trial with 1. FC Nürnberg (where Omar was loaned to before Timmy Chandler tore his ACL in his first training session) last year but they didn't offer him a contract and his one year contract with Willem II was judge a bridge contract to see where he could get this year. Apparently the fans think he's a very good rightback and they wanted to keep him but realize that this was pretty much a one year thing and the financial restrictions of their club make his return unlikely. So that's fairly heartening. One thing I was rather concerned with is that a Willem II fan mentioned he was injury prone. According to Transfermarkt, he missed at least 7 games last season due to injury and missed the last 3 months of the 15/16 season with Heerenveen due to a hamstring injury, which also appears to by at least partially responsible for Heerenveen not renewing his contract last year as he was a consistent starter up until that point. He had interest from other clubs rejected by Heereveen prior which prompted van Anholt to turn in a formal transfer request in 2014. Ultimately, I think he's a big upgrade at what we have at right back currently and if he's on about $200k, I he should be a good deal. However, his recent injury history gives me pause.
Not sure if this means he thinks Chicharito is going to the Galaxy or he just assumes that the LA team in on him is the Galaxy. Certainly would be interesting if the Galaxy get Chicharito and LAFC gets Wesley Sneijder. Not quite the branding I would have expected. This source also interprets the tweet as meaning the Galaxy are signing Chicharito
It makes more sense to have him trial with Los Dos and let the coaching staff evaluate him then, after he gets to play in a few games. If he's up to playing at an MLS level, then offer him a contract.
How was Bayern Leverkusen been a nightmare for Chicharito? He has consistently started and scored for them over two years.