Pierre van Hooijdonk is impressed by AZ. The Alkmaarders saw some strong holders leave last summer, but despite this, the team of trainer Pascal Jansen can call itself the leader of the Eredivisie after eight rounds. Van Hooijdonk especially likes the replacements of departed players.
Wijndal is not on the bench at Ajax, but actually on the bench of the bench. He doesn’t play for a minute,” says Van Hooijdonk at Studio Football. According to the analyst, Milos Kerkez has silently replaced the departed left back in the starting eleven. “His drive is what makes him so good, he has a certain positive aggressiveness to his game. He actually outplayed Tadic two weeks ago. That boy made his debut for the Hungarian national team last week and also scored. He plays with a lot of confidence, which is reflected in the whole team.”
Van Hooijdonk is in any case pleased with AZ’s transfer policy. Wijndal is replaced by Kerkez, Fredrik Midtsjö (Galatasaray, ed.) by Tijani Reinders and Jens Odgaard who actually replaces Albert Gudmundsson (Genoa) and Zakaria Aboukhlal (Toulouse). According to Rafael van der Vaart, Wijndal’s reserve role at Ajax shows how important it is to go to a club where a player gets minutes. Wijndal is going to Ajax and you expect more from that. And then you sit on the couch. Well, nice.”
AZ can currently call itself the proud leader of the Eredivisie, but Van Hooijdonk thinks it is still going too far to declare Jansen’s team a title candidate. “The only thing that is still missing at AZ is the position of right winger,” says the analyst. “Evjen is injured and now Sugawara plays on that side, that was the right back. That says a lot, that you are transformed into a right winger. Only there AZ still does not have the quality that makes you say: ‘Hey, this team could just become champion’.”
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