ADutchSaint

Its already hard in football to plan out one season, looking further then that is impossible since we will probably lose 2/3 key players next summer. If big clubs come knocking for VVD, Forster and Bertrand they will leave after 2/3 seasons with us. Taking steps back is suicide in football, when your standing still you are already going backwards in todays game let alone taking steps on purpose... I don't believe the club is willing to play dangerous games like that on purpose.

Why can't they close the transfer window a month earlier? Why do clubs need a 3 months long window in the first place? Doesn't matter if Spain, or who ever, starts later or sooner. If you would close the window on the first of August then all leagues would start with squads who wont change until the winter. And 2 months is plenty of time to get players in and you can negotiate with players and clubs way before that as well. Its something clubs and leagues have been asking about for years now cause clubs basically sell their fans a product in the pre-season that can change while you have played 3/4 matches already. There really ain't no reason anymore why the window is open until September.

We didn't only have other players, we had players on the pitch on positions where they have played pretty much their entire careers/lives. Tadic and Redmond have been playing on the wings for 99% of their professional matches and now suddenly they play on a different position in a different role. I have said this before on here, at Twente they tried to put Tadic at 10 but even in the Dutch league it became clear very quickly that Tadic ain't exactly a 10 and they moved him back to the wing after a few matches. As a new manager you normally don't change a system this radically, either you ease it in or the old system the players were used to doesn't work anymore and you have to but what Puel is doing atm is utter madness and don't think I've ever seen this before. A loss against United ain't a disaster and there's no guarantee we would have done better so far in the old system but it's clear as day that some of our players don't fit in this system and as long we don't have players who do have the qualities for it we shouldn't play it. And this 'we have to give it time and let the players get used to it', which some are talking about, blows my mind. The league has started, these matches ain't friendlies and the points in the first matches are just as valuable as the rest of the season. Plus a bad start only adds more pressure so why on earth would a manager change so much? It didn't look good in the pre-season and still doesn't look good. I just don't get it and seeing the interaction between players and Puel, I'm not sure if the players are happy with it all.

I really don't like this system we play in. Like why is Tadic dropping back on the pitch to collect the ball? There's nobody on the wings... It just doesn't make sense. United seemed happy to give us possession of the ball by times and we really didn't do anything with it. We were passing the ball around without any treat what so ever. We seriously lack creativity and height and power on the midfield. Hojbjerg, who looks like a improved version of Clasie, and VVD played well but otherwise a lot of players didn't look great or even bad like Targett, Redmond and Davis. It's clear we lost a lot of quality.

It doesn't matter how long you give it a chance, this system doesn't suit our squad. Tadic ain't a 10 and we have no CM's who can play in this system cause you need pace and stamina which Davis and JWP don't have. Football ain't no rocket science and Puel better throws this system in the garbage as soon as he can cause this ain't going to work.

Not really true cause defensively Denayer did good at Celtic. He just ain't no VVD, who's technically and physically on a different level but Denayer held his own there. Would be a good backup, not good enough as a starter tho

Hope not, he's utter crap

He can play as a 10 but Tadic has the habit of turning his back into the defender as he gets the ball, which works fine for him in link up play with wing backs and 1v1 on the wing but in the middle of the pitch you often dont have the space to turn and often the only option left is to play the ball back instead of forwards. I'm not too worried about counter attacks, there will be still 3 midfielders behind him. I'm more worried we won't get the best out of him cause on 10 he won't be able to put in as much crosses as he does on the wing and if you ask me, that's one of his biggest qualities. With space Tadic could be a very good 10 cause he has the qualities to give the balls between lines and defenders but I don't see our opponents giving him that space down the middle. But will see I gues

When Tadic played for Twente they tried to put him on 10 but they moved him back to the wing pretty quickly. His play style just doesn't suit that position. I only see one position for Tadic and that's as a left winger, putting him anywhere else on the pitch is a bad idea.

As it stands now, my expectations aren't that high. The squad looks light when it comes to attacking options and so far I can't say I'm impressed with the new manager. Top 10, winning a a couple of matches in Europe and getting through a few rounds in the cups wouldn't be too bad.

Clubs can deny players from going, Olympics are not part of the FIFA calendar so every player who's in Brazil atm had permission from his club. Doubt that would stand in the way of a transfer. I don't know about you but I don't know a single person who really cares about football at the Olympics. Tournament started yesterday already and it's not even on tv here. Squads look pretty light as well, lot of players didn't get permission.

I just don't get what Defour would add to our squad, no height, no pace, not creative, doesn't score a lot and defensively he ain't a monster so what's left? If we want another CM we should be looking at Van Ginkel if you ask me. Chelsea wants to let him go so he won't be expensive, he's still young and would bring some qualities to our squad. Not that we really need him tho, we should be looking at wingers and a ACM but that's just me

Defour? What the hell do we need him for? Terrible player who offers nothing really

Fonte leaving would be a disaster if you ask me and we will have to dig deep in our pockets to get someone that's close to his level. Just look at how much trouble other clubs have with getting good CB's in, there aren't many available. I would understand if Fonte wants his big payday but I'm not liking it no matter how big the fee

I don't know how it looked on the tv but it didnt look great from inside the stadium. It looked slow, sloppy and it was somewhere at the end of the first half when I saw a little bit of pressure for the first time. I expected a bit more so I'll be honest and i was more focused on drinking beer and goofing around after 50/60 minutes. Decent goal tho and man, i forgot how big Virgil is... Hard to imagine that he played at the other side only a few seasons ago. Maybe the players had some hard training sessions this week and of course a few players are still missing but going forward it was pretty poor today.

You mean the set up where one family owned Udinese, Granada and Watford at the same time? Loaning and selling players between the clubs you own.... I guess you can call that a partnership of some kind

Will see I guess but in all the years that I've been following football, I've never heard of a successful long term partnership between clubs. I personally don't really believe in partnerships between clubs. There's really no reason to have any in the first place.

No one should really but I'm sure we will going to see it soon enough. 45 million is a insane price for a player like Koulibaly. He ain't that much better as a Bailey, Bruma or Umtiti who were all a lot cheaper. Even Hummels wasn't 45 million. Its just getting too silly on the transfer market this summer and really if someone comes knocking for VVD, we shouldn't sell him for less then 50 million cause apparently that's normal these days.

Could be interesting to get him on loan for a season, can play literally on any position at the back and as a DM. Not a change they will sell him tho

Shame, absolute steal for 14 million euro. Would have loved to see him at Southampton, has bigger potential as Tadic to reach the top.

------------Forster---------- Cedric-Fonte-VvD-Bertrand -----Hojbjerg-Romeu------- -Redmond---Davis---Tadic- -------------Long-----------

It's not but Long is a lot better as centre forward then as a winger and what do we have behind that? Not much, only Austin and JRod and youngsters. Our attack is in pretty bad shape atm, can't really deny that.

Maybe there will be a live stream for tomorrow? Don't know, I do know its not broadcasted here in Holland. The match against Groningen will be broadcasted live on tv here so thats something at least.

Well Janssen isnt the kind of striker who creates a lot of chances for himself but you dont have to, plenty of strikers who just finish the chances they get which Janssen has done pretty well so far. Again yes lot of money but you dont only pay for what he has shown so far... I compared him with Huntelaar, who PSV dropped from their academy, and he has done pretty well for himself and has never created a chance for himself and Janssen has better a vision on the pitch and technique as him so who knows. We do make our defenders weak on our own, we are really not that bad but when everybody, including managers, says your weak at something, you will become weak. All defenders make mistakes but in Holland we make a big deal out of it and completely burn people to the ground. Its a joke really. If you as the manager publicly say that Virgil (who has been great in the Premier League) and Bruma (who had a great season and was immense in the Champions League) are too weak to play together in the national team then your a moron and you already burn them before you even give them a chance. And no they were not the best defenders we had, Virgil for example has always been better then those guys but never played for a top club in Holland so then your **** out of luck. Just like van Aanholt is by far the best left-back we have but never played for Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord so we had to watch how Blind clowns around on there or how Willems think he's a winger etc etc. Not to mention we played for years with players who run the 100 meters in 50 seconds and every match our midfield was completely overrun and left the defenders on 1-on-1 situations, every defense would fail on a regular base with that. We didnt qualify because we had/have idiots as managers and not because the defenders them self were terrible, just like van Gaal played with 5 at the back because our midfield was **** and France made us look silly. You cant play internationally with Clasie, Blind, Sneijder/Klaassen/Wijnaldum on one midfield but we sure as hell tried. But we are going off topic and it has nothing to do with the level of defending in the Eredivisie btw, which is poor but just as poor as in other leagues.

Maybe but he could become another Huntelaar as well. I had my doubts about Janssen but i have to say he has impressed me, especially in the matches with the national team. I knew he was good in the box but he's a lot more decent on the ball and in link up play as i thought. And i dont think its a ridiculous amount of money, its a lot but in today's market 17/18 million for a young talented striker aint that much but you can argue thats its a bit much i guess but then your can argue that Spurs picked up enough bargains from the Eredivisie over the years so maybe they felt they owed Dutch clubs something And the weak Dutch defenders... People said the same thing with Bony, Pelle, Suarez etc and they didnt do too bad. We should really stop talking ourselves down like that.