van Hanegem

Ziyech will ‘vanish’ at any club in the PL when his teammates aren’t willing to do the dirty work for him. Great player but he tends to lose the ball a bit too much.

Well, at least someone is making a profit out of Brexit... https://www.google.nl/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2019/08/21/massive-brexit-beach-party-planned-holland-say-goodbye-uk-10606270/amp/

No worries mate, Ralph's famous pressing game works so much better against better teams...

Hundreds of millions on the pitch and still appalling football.

Feyenoord did win against Karlsruhe... But I don’t care much about victories in pre-season as it’s more important to see wether a team is making progress. Feyenoord plays much better now van Bronckhorst has finally gone, it’s just the central defenders who are horrifying with their stupid mistakes. I haven’t seen much of the pre-season of Saints, I wasn’t impressed with what the squad showed today. Was it better in Austria?

Good summary CC, too bad Feyenoord missed their CF Jorgensen who is a much better striker. Berghuis also played well, too bad he lacks the power and pace for the PL. His passing game would really add something to Saints. Good to see a youngster like Obafemi on the pitch too, though it was only 45 minutes you could clearly see his potential.

Good goal, finally some creativity!

Huh? I haven’t seen any passing worth mentioning , let alone creating any chances.

Saint’s biggest problem isn’t defending, it’s the lack of creativity (again). Looks like it’s going to be another boring season.

The Feyenoord youngsters up front are making an effort but as usually the defense is crap. Now they say Hoedt might be the right one for Feyenoord...

You’re easily satisfied... Van Beek is momentarily the worst defender in Europe.

Johnson, Corbyn and Farage. So, with the next GE you can choose between a liar, an antisemite and a fool? Good luck y’all!

You bet. Feyenoord has a salary cap which is 1 million euro’s a year.

Instead of Clasie Feyenoord picked up Liam Kelly from Reading. This guy is even smaller than Clasie...

https://www.vi.nl/nieuws/az-haalt-clasie-terug-naar-eredivisie

It’s a done deal now, no transfer fee involved.

I saw Haller playing for FC Utrecht for a couple of years, decent player but no PL material. Though being a good finisher, he’s too slow.

That would be a good move for Clasie and for Saints also.

Double post.

There is no extreme right in Dutch politics, even Wilders’ program is fairly left wing. Except for his view on islam of course... But no one doubts the exit poll: the Dutch Labour Party has won big due to Frans Timmermans who wants to be Juncker’s successor.

He didn’t have the stamina for 90 minutes Eredivisie before he came to Saints so the PL was even more of a problem (like it is for many Dutch players) for Clasie. I was hoping he could cope with the PL after some extensive fitness training but he just got a little more muscular so it never happened for him and Saints, pity. I’m afraid for Jordy that no one wants him for the next season, as he didn’t add much to Bruges and to Feyenoord this last season (only 3 good games for 70 minutes or so) and because of his wages, I guess he’ll have to wait for another year.

Sorry lads but Jordy is coming back, he had an awful season at Feyenoord. I believe his contract is till 2020?

Thanks for the info Portugalsaint and of course there was no pun intended on that Bulgarian peasant, some people are way too sensitive these days. It was just funny to see this man waving around with his credit card amidst all his chicken, donkey and his prewar carriage. Hopefully he was able to buy false teeth, I don't blame him as he was probably thinking we're all filthy rich in the West. Naturally we have 'political correct' people in the Netherlands too, usually a bunch of hypocrites who smile along when you tell them a joke about the 50 shades of gay in the Vatican. When the joke is on jewish religion it gets a bit awkward: half of them believe you're an "antisemite" and half (those who believe it's quite fashionable to wear a scarf like Arafats around their neck) is still laughing because, you know, Israel is treating Palestinians really wrong. When the joke is on islam they all get furious because you're an "islamophobe". Not that you hear many jokes on islam anymore as our stand up comedians are scared to death to make them. But let's not go over there, before you know Verbal is all over the place and I reckon he needs some more time to translate the evidence I gave him on the Poles... € 600,- is indeed cheap for a city like Berlin but weren't the protests against the enormous profits project developers and investors make when they buy houses, renovate them and soon after start asking ridiculous rents? We see that in the Netherlands too, even a member of our royal family is getting filthy rich this way. He owns almost 600 houses, apartments, shopping malls and office buildings, much of them in Amsterdam. The city council of Amsterdam is looking for a way to disown guys like him because of the affordable housing shortage. I doubt they'll succeed bit I wish them luck. No, Donald Tusk has nothing to do with the 3-6 month extension. It's the European Commission (Juncker & Co) and the current chairman of the EU Romania. The extension of the three month period to six months is part of a package which includes much more. In this package there are also subjects who don't go well in Eastern Europe. So eight of the European countries voted against the package while Poland, Hungary and Malta are withholding their approval. This way there's not the majority needed to go on but our Minister of Social Affairs and Employment said Romania and the EC are still pushing to take care of this so we have to wait and see. Yes, the Dutch are keeping a very close eye on Brexit as our economy will also take a big hit, especially when there's no deal. We can write off our fishing industry for example when we're not welcome anymore in British territorial waters and we have many patients who rely on British medicines. Also, the Netherlands is a transit port for the rest of Europe and our economy relies on trade so less trade due to Brexit will really hurt. Still there are a lot of Dutchmen (including myself ) who wonder what will happen with the UK completely outside the EU in the long run. Everyone understands it will be a big mess for years to come but eventually? There's a program on Dutch televison called Tegenlicht, Backlight in English but I don't know if this really covers the meaning. This program is always looking at things from a different angle and they did so with Trump's protectionism (which won't work for every American...) and Brexit (a look into the "Preston Model" which might help to get out of the mess after Brexit). It's quite refreshing to hear an economist like Dani Rodrik or a historian like Quinn Slobodian commenting on the developments in world economy without the bias you usually get from journalists and politicians. The commentary is in Dutch, sorry for that, but the interviews are in english of course: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlicht/kijk/afleveringen/2018-2019/Eigen-handel-eerst.html

Nope, it's not my tax bill. Though more than half of my income is spent on taxes, I'm happy to pay that bill as I know it is for the good of Dutch society in which we take care of people less fortunate. However, it's getting tough to maintain this welfare state when people who don't contribute to our society are abusing our social system. For example: more and more Dutchmen are not able to pay the insurance for a dentist anymore due to the increasing cost of healthcare, they just have to hope they're lucky and won't end up like that Bulgarian peasant. Also many Dutchmen (employed and unemployed) have to make use of foodbanks because they can't make ends meet. Could you explain to them why we're losing more than a billion each year on fraud by foreigners? Sure, you can say the Dutch government is accountable and yes: they're going to hire hundreds of workers in order to get more control of the applications for benefits. So hopefully this will mean a decrease of the fraud otherwise we will lose even more money because of the wages of those extra workers. Unfortunately, those workers won't be allowed to go to Poland or other countries to see if someone is doing his or her best to get a job or to see if they are really disabled to work. They just have to rely on their Polish contacts, good luck with that... I'm unhappy with the unrestraint freedom of movement within Europe which causes a lot of problems. The undermining of our social system is one thing but what do you think that the arrival of all those cheap workers from Eastern Europe does to the average hourly wage in low paid jobs? It won't rise, I can tell you that. In fact, even left wing politicians in the Netherlands are now concerned with so many unskilled workers not being able to get a job because it would mean they would get less money than they get from social assistance. What's your idea on this?

73 quid a week? That's preposterous! Even people who can't apply for unemployment benefit because they didn't work get a social assistance allowance of € 935 a month (families get € 1336) in the Netherlands. I reckon wages are much higher in the UK compared to the Netherlands because employers and employees don't have to pay a monthly premium for unemployment? In the Netherlands you get an unemployment benefit based on 80% of your last income, after that it's 70% of your last income and dependant of how many years you have worked you can get this benefit for a maximum of three years. After that you can get the social assistance as mentioned above. You wouldn't believe how much fraud there is from Eastern Europe with the social assistance, a couple of years ago Dutch television showed that almost a complete village in Bulgaria was living on Dutch social assistance because it's fairly easy to get. "Free money!" said some teethless peasant with a big smile on his face. "Next year I'll come again to your wonderful country!"