Santiago Gimenez has been in a dip in form for several weeks, as Willem van Hanegem notes in the AD Willem&Wessel podcast. According to the curve there is not much left of the good impression that the club's top scorer Feyenoord made at the beginning of this season.

Gimenez was on fire during the first half of the season. He scored 18 goals in 15 Eredivisie matches, but after the winter break he found the net much less easy. The attacker did get on the scoreboard against NEC (2-2). At home against FC Twente he missed a penalty, leaving Feyenoord stuck at a 0-0 draw.

“I remember looking at him at the beginning of the season and thinking: well, as long as he doesn't leave.”, Van Hanegem begins. “I'd rather not now, but if you get sixty million for him now, you have to pack him immediately. He was so bizarrely good at the beginning of this season. Besides his goals, also in terms of playing football. There is not much left of that now.”

“I just think you should make sure he has a little more space around him,” Van Hanegem continues. “Now everything is played through the middle. Opponents are also prepared for this. Gimenez is the attack leader, but he hardly gets the ball anymore. When he is played in, there are so many players around him that he cannot go anywhere.”

In Van Hanegem's eyes, Feyenoord must keep the game broader. He also criticizes Igor Paixão. “He is currently not passing an opponent. Luka Ivanusec is also not a player who plays someone off.”

The Feyenoord club icon previously went for it in a column Algemeen Dagblad already in on Gimenez's lesser form. “I expect a bit more from him in recent weeks. And that feeling was the same again against FC Twente. I'm not a psychologist, I don't know why, but the sharpness has disappeared for a while. I saw one nice action on the side of the field, before half time. A lot else went wrong.”

The former coach knows that Gimenez is being closely followed by foreign clubs, despite the poorer recent weeks. In that context he makes an appeal to the Mexican. “Where in Europe will supporters cheer him if he has missed a chance? Or if he misses a penalty for the second time?”

“He has a luxury position in Rotterdam, even now no one from the club said out loud that he should stay away from the ball for a while if there is another penalty. He really doesn't find it anywhere that they are so crazy about him,” said Van Hanegem.

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