Hopefully. OTOH, it's not as if he's going to be there after May. If Groningen go down, but Pepi keeps scoring at his current clip, he'll have scored 15 goals and 6 assists in 30 league games. That amounts to "job well done" from his and Augsburg's performance. Even if there's a parting of the ways on the cards between them, he'll have marked himself out as a prospect of real quality who can also deliver in the here-and-now, though maybe not for a BL1 relegation battler. Be in no doubt, the bids will come
The Eredivisie is a top European league. It is ranked #6 league in UEFA. Everyone loves the Eredivisie because it is a scorer's league. There are lots of goals. It has historically been a feeder league to the top 5, but it is becoming a great league in its own right, having risen a lot in the rankings the past few years. Nevertheless, the defending in the Eredivisie is not the best. That's not an insult, it's just the way it is. I wouldn't say it's "easy" to score in the Eredivisie, it's just not nearly as hard as in the top 5 leagues. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2033754-statistically-ranking-the-worlds-top-10-football-leagues
It'd be a shame to see Groningen go down, they were a fun, solid team in the Erediv. for most of this century.
Don't disagree but I'm always reminded of the casualness a GM in the Turkish league when he said, in response to someone complaining about a player's shortcomings something like, "If he didn't have flaws in his game, he wouldn't be here." The top of the top is a whole different level.
It's still a long way to season's end, but as of right now they are deep doo doo. They need to buy a defender or two. Pepi will need to step it up.
If you need a striker consistently scoring to save you from relegation, you're already relegated. Strikers numbers are mostly dependent upon a base-level of functionality. They can play a part in that, but they pretty much need to be a Dike-level monster physically, and in terms of relentlessness, to possibly overcome that. Even then, Jozy didn't come close to saving Hull over a decade ago. And I'd go to bat for his outstanding target play there. But it wasn't nearly enough. And still wouldn't have been if he'd have scored a whopping 4 goals instead of 1 in his meager opportunities, during which he let the drought frustrate him. As a non physical beast, who can just facilitate others, the long droughts with multiple missed golden opportunities in a row is all Pepi can try and avoid. It still wouldn't be enough unless Groningen's defense & midfield got their act together. Pepi over doubling everyone in goals scored, and being their leading assist man, doesn't say much for the supporting cast. That's not to mention all the late blown results to thwart Pepi and co's efforts in those matches.
For what? He hasnot been the difference maker, who got them over the treshold. He's not going to make them money like Arjen Robben etc.
I feel their emphasis on attacking is what makes it easier to score. There are lots of defenders there who move on to better leagues and do fine or even great. Could even be the defenders get extra prep on defending because there aren't so many numbers back.
They wouldn't be a top 6 league if the defending was complete and utter rubbish. However, the defending is clearly not as good as Serie A, for example. Everything is relative. No one goes to the Eredivisie with the idea that they are going to learn great defending.
Yeah, but the best Serie A defenders according to fans and press are Dutch. The best defenders in the epl are Dutch, van Dijk, Ake and Botman, who seems to have been clocked as the fastest player in the epl, and in the French league a Dutch defensive midfielder according to stats of fotmob or something like that is rated as the eighth best performing player. You know, the league with spot 1 etc. The matter of fact is that Dutch defenders in Serie A, BuLi, epl are so much wanted (if good of course) is precisely because they learned in the Eredivisie the trade of modern defending with (high) pressure, passing and for the wing backs the attacking cooperation with the wingers and attacking midfielders.. So many people talk about "learning" in the Eredivisie how to attack as there's no defending. The case however is we have an abundance of top quality defenders for the Orange Squad, so much that we even put on the bench Stefan de Vrij, who last season was voted the best defender of the Serie A by fans and press, but our attacking quality players are far less numerous. Seems a bit odd, given the supposed Eredivisie MO.
Those three have a combined 88 appearances in the Eredivisie, all before turning 23. Nobody thinks that Dutch defenders are weak - de Ligt could end up being considered the best in the world at his position, for example. Eredivisie defending is a different question, because the top young players tend to outgrow that league pretty fast.
Every country has good attackers, defenders, midfielders. That's a different topic than the quality of the league. Furthermore, one of the reasons for the rise in the Eredivisie's UEFA ranking is better defending overall, to its credit. Talking about a few individual players who don't play in Eredivisie is not relevant to the Eredivisie. Van Dijk is arguably the best defender in the world. However, talking about a player who played at Groningen 10 years ago has nothing to do with the defending in the Eredivisie. Our own Sergiño Dest came from Ajax and then to Barca and Milan, and he's not that great of a defender. I'm talking about the overall state of defending in the league, and not some individual player.
The point is they learn it in here and by a disproportionate number, compared to other leagues. We atm donot deliver many top strikers, but do so with a disproportionate number of defenders. That's impossible when defending sucks in here. What is being confused by the superficial "observers" is that the way we defend, high line constant pressure, fast turn overs, is by them seen as not defending at all. However it's just these characteristics that make Dutch defenders pop up in the top teams of Europe.
People, including me, think defending in the Eredivisie is poor because they see a number of dudes have ridiculous numbers in the Eredivisie and never come close to replicating those numbers in bigger leagues. Michael Bradley scored 15 Eredivisie goals in the 07/08 season with Heerenveen --> never came close to these numbers in any other league or season he's played in. Jozy Altidore scored 23 Eredivisie goals in the 12/13 season with AZ Alkmaar. -> never came close to these numbers in any other league or season he's played in. Famously, Afonso Alves scored 34 goals in the 06/07 season with Heerenveen and moved to the premier league in the January window in 07/08 and flopped. Eredivisie can be a high scoring league where players find it relatively easy to score and can produce some high quality defenders for export. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
Roy Makaay, I guess you would agree that's a proven killer in several top leagues, scored in the same season Micheal scored that number for Heerenveen, just 13 goals while playing for Feyenoord. In the season before that Roy scored 16 times in the BuLi. So if it's that easy to score , how come a legit killer scores less while at a club with better players? They always come up with some anecdotal players to fit their picture to paint. How about the contrairy, players never scoring much in the Eredivisie, but blasting the defenses in the epl and/or La Liga. Hasselbaink sound familiar? Van Persie?
Some times it's just cogs that interlock perfectly at a given time frame. Dual Dutch/German nationality defender Robin Gosens went from Heracles to Atalanta and as a defender scored more than iirc in his whole time at Heracles.
It's much more about 2 things: The bottom 1/2 of the Eredivisie tends to have real problems with fielding a full 11 that is front to back "top tier" - and even the top half clubs don't have the dept of the "big 4" - and the philosophical difference. Veltman or Hateboer or Tete or Mat de Ligt, or Angelino or St. Juste were not "bad" defenders in the Ered and "good" after transferiing to "big 4" teams (we can watch to see if Wober makes the jump from Salzburg to Leeds now too) They just played different styles and the sum of the parts on some of those teams were nowhere near the sum of the parts on most "big 4" clubs.
You still give no explanation why, if it's so easy to score, it only is one or two guys scoring more than 20 goals. If it's so easy you would expect at least 6 or 8 of them with 20+ goals, given the top 5 should have players capable of doing that against the poor defenses. So how come that easy scoring still is limited, while your suggestion is that any random player can pull of that trick?
So, why a such high scoring league? A matter of tactical preferences? As much as let's say Serie A is a defensive league? It still devalues strikers' numbers. How many Golden Shoe winners (or at least contenders) would Eredivisie have had without multipliers?
Eredivisie rules (high salary for non-EU players) mean it's really hard to get a spot in the league without an EU/EEA passport.