According to club watcher Mike Verweij, Erik ten Hag would do well to let Jay Gorter make his debut in Ajax’s main squad in the upcoming Eredivisie matches. To prevent Gorter from having to make his Ajax debut in the Champions League, Verweij thinks it is good for the closing post to make his first minutes in the main squad in competition matches that Ajax ‘normally wins anyway’.
Due to the injury of Maarten Stekelenburg, Ten Hag appealed to Remko Pasveer in the Champions League against Sporting Portugal (1-5) last Wednesday, who made a blunder in the 1-2. The 37-year-old goalkeeper did not make a good impression in Lisbon and was one of the few Ajax players to be criticized after the big victory. “If I were Ten Hag I would use the matches against Cambuur, Fortuna Sittard or FC Groningen to throw in Jay Gorter. At Stekelenburg, it apparently shot in his groin again in the last training,” said Verweij in the Kick Offpodcast from The Telegraph.
“Ajax should pay attention to that, it has already cost them the final once”
“Valentine (Driessen, ed.) also pointed out that when you saw Onana’s first matches at Jong Ajax, you thought: send it back to Barcelona, because that won’t work either”, says Verweij, who notes that it development of a keeper ‘apparently can go very quickly’. “So that’s why I would use one of those Eredivisie matches that you normally win anyway to give him a chance. Because Pasveer is also almost 38 and Stekelenburg is injured. Maybe one day you will have to play against Besiktas or Borussia Dortmund, and if he hasn’t played a game in the Eredivisie… Well, good luck.”
The 21-year-old Gorter is described by Verweij as ‘an enormous bouncing ball’. “It was also the reason why he was once sent away from Ajax’s youth. At Go Ahead they had to keep him on the right track with forty horses. He was just a very difficult boy,” said Verweij, who is asked in the podcast to clarify what he means by ‘bouncing ball’. “That he’s just full of energy. They say keepers are crazy, but it kind of tends to be that. He is very gloomy,” said Verweij, who emphasizes that it is about behavior within the lines.
“At Go Ahead Eagles he has made such strides that he is really great goalkeeper at Jong Ajax. Then it turns out that if you come to such a club and are taken care of by experienced goalkeeper trainers, you can make very big steps very quickly,” said the club watcher, who saw Gorter in action in recent weeks in the Keuken Kampioen. Division. In those duels he did not think Gorter came across as gloomy. “No, then I found him very calm. He also stopped penalties. But every now and then he did realize that you thought: wow. That can go terribly wrong in the Champions League.”