Row between little kids soothes the heart…

That’s when the coach has to decide who takes the shots.

It has to be Sneijder or VDV….

Posted from  India

@Miguel – the coach has already decided, it’s Sneijder, Van Persie, Van der Vaart, then others, like Huntelaar. So Van der Vaart was the player who was supposed to take that kick, but I think Huntelaar wanted it because he won the foul. I completely understand his sentiment, I’ve felt the same way before.

Seriously though, this is not an issue at all, a storm in a tea cup. This type of thing will happen with any team, and especially with headstrong dutch players, but I really don’t see any problems with it (unless it started happening with every free kick, of course).

Posted from  Japan

I don’t think it’s ONLY the fact that he earned the foul, I think he really thought he was going to score from there (or at least show why he should be a starter). HIS chance to prove himself again, got robbed away by the defender first and then vdVaart sort of. Must be pretty frustrating after doing everything right.

If vdVaart had scored everyone would be praising vdVaart instead of Huntelaar who made it all possible. People will probably all forget about the excellent move he made that opened him up completely to the goal. Hehe, but I didn’t and I’ll make sure the rest of the fans notice it as well.

I’m afraid if Kuyt is chosen over Huntelaar we’re going to have the same disaster as in 2006 when Kuyt was chosen over vNistelrooij. If we only had 1 good finisher in that game against Portugal that game might have gone entirely different, we did have the chances, just not the finishing. I don’t see that much different about Kuyt’s qualities compared to 2006 (maybe his previous qualities have improved a bit, his finishing maybe a little bit, but it’s still not good enough).

Our frontline against Portugal in 2006:

——– Kuyt ———-
Robben – Sneijder – vPersie

Gee, that looks familiar doesn’t it? It’s still not working and our coach(es) is (are) still trying it.
If we continue down this road we’re never gonna get the maximum out of our squad. We’re good enough to win the WC, but not with the wrong line-ups against the wrong opponents. Against these teams Kuyt should be benched and Elia should play together with Robben on the wings, Huntelaar or a fit and in form RvN as the striker (this does not mean you have to drop vPersie and/or Sneijder, we all know that they can play various positions, including holding midfielder, especially Sneijder, if you want to drop anyone, drop vBommel or de Jong, I prefer dropping vBommel if your opponent has fast creative dribbling midfielders, like Brazil and Spain):

-Brazil
-Spain
-Portugal
-Argentina
-Paraguay
-Chile
-Russia
-Côte d’Ivoire
-Mexico

The next ones I’m not too sure about, Kuyt might be useful there if they play very defensively and tight and there’s just no room for creativity and brute force is required (I’d still start with Hunter and bring Kuyt later on):

-France
-England
-Germany

Kuyt may be useful as a starter against teams you just know are going full on defense with big strong defenders that will foul creative players if necessary before they can create a chance. But I wouldn’t always take off Hunter to make room for him, depends on who you face (and who’s in form of course):

-Italy (probably without Hunter and try to still have as many creativity in the squad as possible, you want Robben, vPersie, vdVaart and Sneijder if possible, Elia is too inexperienced against Italian defenders, wouldn’t try him, Hunter will be too familiar for the Italians, more easily counterable by their defense)
-Greece (Hunter stays, can be replaced with more creativity in second half, Elia definitely an option)
-Australia
-Croatia
-Serbia
-Switzerland

Posted from  Netherlands

De Jong making his first start of the season for Man City today against Arsenal. He is replacing Carlos Tevez who is out with an injury.

Very good news finn , i hope he will convince his coach today , because he really deserves to play as a starter .
Huntelaar will start the game with milan too , best of luck for all of them

Persie , de jong , robben , kuyt were all amazing today with their teams
brafhied wasn’t in his form .

Huntelaar was subbed after 65 minutes.

Posted from  United States

Thought Braafheid did alright.

Posted from  Netherlands

Not good, but not worse than the other Bayern defenders.

Posted from  Netherlands

Great shot by elia !!! WOW..

ill definitely be internally conflicted when it would come to hamburg – bayern

Posted from  Norway

133 kmh!!!!

Its amazing how fast that player emerged to world class football!

Posted from  Norway

@alex, agree with you , not worse than other bayern defenders , but i still think he can do better than this . He is a worldclass defender

about elia, id like to say that i made that video of him because i knew elia was a superb player. unfortunetly i wasn’t certain about him till the beginning of this season.

note

he was a part in petrics goal aswell

Elia have not stopped scoring. Once again, he scored for Hamburg. I think he will become a superstar at Hamburg.

Posted from  Canada

Den Haag – AZ : 2-1!! haha … great result for my team..

btw; Adebayor should be banned for a couple of months; nasty kick to the head on vPersie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vUDWBUEH4A

de Jong got some evry good press at MOTD today

Posted from  Netherlands

Sol I really agree with your great analysis. Unbelivable how van Marwijk is sticking to that same attack where we all know that RVP doesn´t perform well in the right and Kuyt has nothing to do as central striker.

Our frontline for me should be:
——– Huntelaar (Ruud if recovers form) ———-
Robben – van Persie – Elia

And the defence needs some radical changes because there are players like Vlaar, Loovens, Braafheid, etc; that deserve more minutes. Van Marwijk, with the defence you are using we are not going to get very far in S.A. 2010.

i would like

v.Persie

elia sneijder robben

young talent van wolfswinkel scored a brace today, someone to keep an eye out for

also man city plays manchester untied next week and i thin de jong will be used to battle.

lets hope he makes his mark

I watched the whole Man City – Arsenal game. Both Van Persie and De Jong had great games. Van Persie got mugged by Adebaythewhore, plus he should be sent off for his stupid goal celebration which caused one of the Stewards to be sent to hospital because the Arsenal fans started throwing things. Evidently the league is looking into the matter.

De Jong’s role was to shut down Fabregas, a job he did with excellence. Gave up the ball a few times in the beginning, but defensively had an excellent game. Fabregas was barely visible.

thought braafheid played poorly to be honest. Robben was okay…

elia is tha man.

de Jong was everywhere – Hughes would have surely noticed. Thought Robin was quite invisible till his goal – fell down too often, needs to play a couple of games of rugby to toughen him up a little. Commentators surprised he didnt go for goal with that free kick 22metres out. Adebayor played very well but has a mind of a 10 year old, the rake on Robin was done on purpose.

Posted from  Singapore

So far a very good weekend for our Dutch lads.

Robben gets an assist and 1 really good shot at goal that is parried by the goalkeeper but results in a goal anyway 2 touches later.

Elia gets 1 goal, 1 assist and man of the match (you can see in the field that Ze Roberto really likes to play with him, gives him a lot of balls, the other players are following suit, with a few exceptions, and those are usually the ones that are screwing up chances).
Mathijssen played solid in that game as well.

vPersie and Kuyt get their goal, vPersie’s goal was excellent and completely earned by himself (and personally I liked it very much that he used his right for it). He also had one shot on the post AFTER he got his head kicked in by Adebayor (who should have been sent off for THAT, not the celebration), which is a good recovery from a headkick like that. I would say he was Arsenal’s leading man that day.
Nice to see de Jong getting recognition on the BBC as well for his outstanding performance.

I didn’t see much of Huntelaar cause the streams wouldn’t work, what I saw was an AC Milan not creating any chances for the first 20 minutes or so, after that, no idea. He got subbed at minute 55, not a good sign.

Braafheid was crap, but luckily nobody notices or remembers his earlier mistakes in that game when you win it 5-1.

Posted from  Netherlands

agreed on braafheid. was excited to watch him get a start.
unfortunatly, was usrprised van gaal didnt take him off after 20 minutes for Pranjic. he was struggling out there.

Van Persie did great he scored a very good goal and hit the post. Man City had 4 opportunities and they scored them all. Nigel played very good.