Frenkie de Jong did not impress Pierre van Hooijdonk on Friday evening in the match between Latvia and the Netherlands (0-1) in the World Cup qualifying series. The midfielder suffered, according to the analyst of the NOS losing the ball too often and didn’t always make the right choices in attacking terms.
Of all players, De Jong sent the most passes (115), of which 106 arrived, or 92.2 percent. However, Van Hooijdonk did not think he was pure enough. “Frenkie also shared in the malaise. For his part, he had a lot of unnecessary ball loss,” says the former attacker. “It is almost always unnecessary if he loses the ball, because he is normally very attached to the ball. You are not used to this from him.”
It is very telling who the best player of the Dutch was against Latvia
Voetbalzone handed out report figures to the players of the Dutch.
Van Hooijdonk highlights a moment from the 65th minute. De Jong steamed towards the penalty area and was able to give Gakpo a shooting opportunity with a through pass, but chose to continue his sprint with the ball. He was then run off the ball. “Normally he always sticks that ball. Now he makes a different choice, and it’s not the right one. It’s not looking good. But we could also have shown these images of eight other players.”
Van Hooijdonk is also not pleased with the performance of Memphis Depay. He thinks the Barcelona attacker is the only ‘really good player’ of the Dutch in the vanguard, although he does not belong to the ‘top five center strikers in the world’. “So that’s saying a lot. The Lukakus, you name them all, they just have more. If Memphis doesn’t have it, and he didn’t have it today, then sometimes there is no one at all in rush hour.”