Feyenoord did not impress analysts Kees Kwakman and Mario Been van on Thursday evening ESPN. In the first game of the second qualifying round of the Conference League, Arne Slot’s team did not pass Kosovar FC Drita (0-0). Kwakman and Been aim their arrows afterwards at Orkun Kökçü, the new wearer of number 10 after the departure of Steven Berghuis to Ajax.
Kökçü suffered 22 loss of possession, the highest number of all Feyenoord players. He took care of the corners, which presented too little danger. Kwakman noticed a lack of creativity at Feyenoord. “It’s hard against a team like that. They all fall back. Very often a set piece can help you. But those set pieces… Kökçü, besides the fact that he gave in twenty balls, got one good corner at Toornstra. Furthermore, he has handed every corner to the keeper or the defender in front of the first post. With that you can break open the match, but it also radiated nothing. ‘
Been thinks it is commendable that Kökçü dares to play with number 10, but acknowledges that the youth exponent has not yet proven to be of great value on the field. “I like a certain personality of a player. He wants to wear the number 10 shirt and normally those are the players with the most creativity, who show the most. Of course he doesn’t have that yet. He suffers way too much Losing the ball with the simplest solutions. What Kees indicates: he wants to take every free kick and corner, but hardly anything comes out.”
Kökçü himself found Feyenoord’s game too predictable. “We dominated in possession, but not in play,” said the midfielder. ”It was difficult to play against this opponent, who was lurking on the counter. Our game eventually became too predictable. I was in the game a lot in midfield, but I didn’t always make the right choice. Coming Thursday it should be better to beat FC Drita. They will also be lurking on the counter in Rotterdam. It’s up to us to find a better answer.”
Leroy Fer indicates that Feyenoord had difficulty with Drita’s defensive play. “Of course we want to win here. We have created a number of opportunities, but not enough for our qualities,” acknowledges the captain, who operates as a centre-back. “We have the chance to do the job at home. We know we can do better. We didn’t give anything away, but we could have created more. They were defending with ten men and lurking on the counter. We know we can do better. and we will take that to next week. We are going to analyze this game to see what can be done better.”