Wim Kieft enjoys the development that Sébastien Haller and Cyriel Dessers are going through at Ajax and Feyenoord respectively. Haller is joint top scorer of the Champions League with nine goals and also leads the top scorer ranking of the Eredivisie with the same number of goals, while Dessers has already scored seven goals after thirteen matches. The attacker was good for some important goals from Feyenoord and also as a substitute.
Kieft describes Haller and Dessers as ‘phenomena’ in his column in The Telegraph. “About the Haller phenomenon: whatever you think of him, he does what you can expect from an Ajax striker,” emphasizes the former attacker of Ajax, among others. “He is in the penalty area and then you have to wait for the balls to run into it. They will come without a doubt and you will see that he is very often in the right place. You can also class that under quality.”
Kieft concludes that the selection of Ajax for the Champions League level is lacking, even though the first five group matches were won. For example, Erik ten Hag’s team did not play in its strongest line-up against Besiktas (1-2 win) last Wednesday and Dusan Tadic moved to the point of the attack, while Haller took a seat on the bench. Ajax was not able to achieve the level of the previous European duels. “If you separate Tadic and Haller, a lot changes. Unlike Feyenoord (Dessers) and PSV (Carlos Vinicius), there is no direct replacement for Haller at Ajax after the departure of Brian Brobbey and Lassine Traoré.”
“Danilo did well at FC Twente, but falls short for Ajax. In an attacking sense, the team therefore struggles with quite a few limitations. Ajax can break that up later in the tournament against clubs such as Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain.” With Dessers, Feyenoord is ‘also a phenomenon’, emphasizes Kieft. “He made two great goals, one of which was again deep in injury time,” the former the Dutch international points to the Conference League match between the Rotterdam team and Slavia Prague (2-2) last week. “The way he turned away on his first goal, not many strikers can do that, especially with Dessers’ posture.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even know exactly what he was doing with that goal, but that it went by itself, in a flow. Because he is undeniably in such a flow that everything works out. Dessers also radiates that he is full of self-confidence. To be in such a state is wonderful and at the same time something inexplicable”, Kieft knows better than anyone. “For himself he probably knows that he is not as good as he is manifesting and how he is performing now. You want to maintain that flow for as long as possible. Therefore, he won’t even mind if he has to start again on the bench next time and is brought in as a substitute for Bryan Linssen. You’re going to find it funny, so to speak, because it works every time. As a coach, it does not seem advisable to me to upset the existing hierarchy in this situation.”