@Igor: I agree with a lot of what you say and playing Kuyt as a defensive, or even box-to-box midfielder is a better suggestion than right wing. The problem? He hasn’t played there before, and you simply can’t throw players out of position in big competitions. I have a feeling he’d be a bit like Alan Smith when Ferguson played him there too – he wasn’t bad but his challenges were rash. I maintain, Kuyt is no great tackler of the football. Van Basten’s been commenting on Sneijder’s defensive improvements so that could be a hint as to where he’ll play.

Kuyt’s a great guy, and probably a good personality to have around the squad anyway – I purely don’t want him starting for Oranje for footballing reasons.

I wouldn’t be worried about Robin for the EC. I think he will have plenty of time to mentally and physically prepare for the tournament. I honestly think he felt a lot of pressure to quickly get back in Arsenal’s lineup to save their season and win some trophies, but now that that’s all over, he can prepare with all that extra time. This will be Robin’s tournament! Mark my words!

For 1) you need exquisite positioning and a good vision of the game. Some players have that (Van Bommel doesn’t in my opinion), some will never learn. It’s what Redondo, Guardiola, Cocu, Blind, Litmanen, Rijkaard were born with. Both Van Gaal and Van Basten think De Zeeuw has that too.

For 2) you need to see the game well (in front of you) and you need to have strong passing skills: right direction, right speed, watch out for lurking opponents waiting to intercept, and you have to be able to deduct what the next man will do with the ball. If for instance, Robben is somewhat free on the left, the holding midfielder will need to open to the midfielder on the right (!) to allow him to open up to the left. Stuff like that. Four weeks training won’t be enough to teach Kuyt how to do that. Kuyt played deep all his life, you can’t make him play in a holding role. Even Sneijder (who is more intelligent as a player than Kuyt) struggled with the role two years back.

I also can’t see why Kuyt is an asshole. I can understand people thinjing Davids or Van Bommel is an asshole. I can even imagine people thinking Van Nistelrooy is one, or Robben is a whiner, but I can’t see Kuyt as an asshole. He is a model professional. Always working, nice to the fans, available to the press, never complaining in public. The guy was a hero in Utrecht, Rotterdam and now in Liverpool. 100.000s of fans can’t be wrong eh?

i think that the starting XI will be determined by where marco decides to play sneijder (a lot of ppl here think he could play in a holding role, but marco hasn’t played him there since the world cup) and the form in training camp of the other creative/attacking players like persie, robben, vdv, seedorf to see which ones start and which ones stay on the bench.

i would love to see Kuijt play as a defensive midfielder, i am not sure if it would work, but i think its worth a try in a friendly match just to see.(btw tiju, how can you say that Kuijt is an asshole? seems like a nice guy to me)

He does run & run, never complains about anything, does not do any bad stuff off the field, the other players love him and his work rate speak for itself. Every team need a player like that. Perhaps not to start every game, but when you meet certain teams where you are going to need a work horse running up to attack & back to defend (like when playing France, a little less so against Italy), Kuyt is your man.

You can’t leave him out. Who is going to pick up the additional defensive work against quality opposition that he does?

@goose – no to Bouma and Kuyt – they’re liabilities – I’d move Van Persie right, Van der Vaart in the middle, and De Cler at left back.

No-one needs to play like they could die for the team – players like Sneijder, Heitinga et al. are professionals – they’re not going to duck out of challenges. The only guy there who might is Robben. If you want a player to play like Davids then Drenthe should be there – it’ll be just great when Dirk Kuyt “dies for the team” by lunging in on someone in his own box in the 119th minute of extra time.

I agree that maybe there’s not a player to grab the game by the scruff of the neck if it’s going badly, but Kuyt’s not that guy – he’s a bolsterer, not a match winner. Just like at the World Cup, if Oranje finds itself performing badly, it’ll be moments of individual brilliance that pull us through – in the group stage of that competition it was Robben and Van Persie who provided it.

He is probably the only one, really.