%image% Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt scored two late goals as the Netherlands beat Hungary in an eight-goal thriller in Amsterdam on Tuesday.
The hosts moved to the brink of booking their finals but berth were pushed all the way as the visitors – beaten 4-0 in the reverse fixture in Budapest on Friday – twice fought their way back into the game.
Arsenal striker Robin van Persie’s early strike gave the Dutch a half-time advantage but goals from Gergely Rudolf and Zoltan Gera turned the game on its head.
Gera equalised again after goals from Wesley Sneijder and Ruud van Nistelrooy had got Holland back in front, before Kuyt had the final say to move Bert van Marwijk’s side to 18 points from six games.
In Soha, Sweden had to withstand a late barrage from Moldova to claim a 2-1 win.
The Swedes were able to break the deadlock on the half hour through Mikael Lustig.
But the result of the game was not confirmed until eight minutes from the end when Sebastian Larsson notched Sweden’s second, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic missing from the spot before the interval.
Gutsy Moldova were able to salvage some pride when Alexandr Suvorov grabbed a consolation goal.
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has admitted he has serious defensive concerns ahead of the new season.
Redknapp is facing the prospect of starting the new campaign without either the injury-plagued Jonathan Woodgate or captain Ledley King.
Woodgate made only three appearances last season following a long-running groin problem which required surgery.
Meanwhile, King's chronic knee problems means he cannot train fully and his appearances must be carefully managed.
King also had a groin problem picked up while on World Cup duty with England.
"Jonathan will not be fit for the start of the season. He's in a position where he can't train or kick a ball," explained Redknapp, who also has fellow central defenders Sebastien Bassong, Younes Kaboul and Michael Dawson to call upon.
"Ledley has come back and his knee is not great and he has a groin problem."
Meanwhile, Redknapp claims that despite the injury problems, his squad which finished fourth last season can seriously challenge for the Premier League title.
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He added:"You have to go in believing. I said last year we could get into the Champions League and we managed to do so.
"If you don't aim for the top you are never going to reach there. I think we could have a real go this year."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Manchester City winger Adam Johnson has put pen to paper on a new contract at the Etihad Stadium, keeping him at the club until 2015.
The England international and big-spending Premier League club have been locked in discussions over a new deal for a number of months, but Sky Sports can reveal that the extension has been agreed.
Rumours have circulated in the English press that Johnson, who joined the side from Middlesbrough for £7 million back in January 2010, was displeased with his lack of regular first team action and a move was potentially on the cards.
However the new deal will go far to quash the speculation, as Johnson now fights to be more of a frequent fixture in Roberto Mancini’s starting XI.
Mirror Football indicate that the club will double the 24-year-old’s wages, with his current salary of £45,000-a-week being boosted to £90,000-a-week.
Johnson will be in contention for City this weekend, as they host Newcastle at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
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In his column for the Liverpool Echo this week, former Liverpool striker John Aldridge highlighted a number of players that he termed as “dead wood” who needed to be sold in the summer months so that the Reds could begin to build a stronger squad:
“The defeat at West Ham was a reminder of just how big the job is at Liverpool. Kenny Dalglish has transformed the side’s fortunes in two months. We were never going to go eight games unbeaten under Roy Hodgson but it’s clear the squad really needs strengthening this summer. We’ve still got players like Philipp Degen, Emiliano Insua, Nabil El Zhar and Alberto Aquilani on the payroll. Plus there’s other dead wood at Anfield which needs to be moved on. Dalglish is going to have to deal with that. They need to be cleared out to boost the pot he’s got to bring players in.”
With Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group stating from the outset that they had concerns over Liverpool’s sizeable wage bill, the removal of a number of substandard players from the team’s squad will surely be given equal priority to making acquisitions to improve the squad this summer. I have listed below the first five players I would like to see leave the Reds this summer.
Christian Poulsen – Brought in to replace Javier Mascherano last summer, the Dane has absolutely failed to impress during his number of starts under both Roy Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish. He fundamentally looks a few yards too slow for the Premier League and his distribution of the ball has been horrendous on occasions this season. Although the fact his wife had given birth to new born baby the night before, his display against Sparta Prague last Thursday was nothing short of abject. He gave the ball away on a number of occasions and it was a relief when he was substituted for Jay Spearing. Poulsen himself is uncertain whether he will be at Liverpool next season:
“At the end of the season, I will evaluate what to do about my future. There are many factors to take into consideration.”
Udinese are said to be interested in Poulsen and a suggestion has been made today that he could be used as a makeweight in a deal for Alexis Sanchez.
Paul Konchesky – Not much needs to be said about the former Fulham left back. His move to the Reds in the summer was much criticised and after a number of below par performances, the scepticism over his ability to play for a club like Liverpool looked to be justified. Once Kenny Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson, Konchesky wasn’t even given a game before he was loaned out to Championship side Notts Forest. Due to Premier League rules, he wasn’t allowed to play for a third top flight club in a single season but teams such as Mick McCarthy’s Wolves were interested in the player back in January, and the player is expected to leave Anfield in the summer.
Milan Jovanovic – The Serbian has had little game time since the start of the season under Roy Hodgson. Both Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish opted to start the 29 year old within their first few matches in charge, but both times the forward has subsequently been put down the pecking order. Under Hodgson, Maxi Rodriguez was later favoured while under Dalglish, Rodriguez and Joe Cole have been given the nod ahead of him, and the switch to 3-5-2 on occasion has limited his game time further. He apparently rejected a move to Wolfsburg in January but if a team at the level of the German club come in for him again in the summer, he will no doubt be departing the Reds.
Emiliano Insua – Some may disagree with me on this one but the Argentinean full back is not a player I rate. Despite being young and still learning his trade, Insua doesn’t have the pace to play left back for me to really be a star in the Premier League. He has also failed to impress on his loan spell at Galatasaray and has been in and out of the team under both Frank Rijkaard and Gheorghe Hagi. It is unlikely that the Turkish club will take up their option to make the loan a permanent move, and I think selling to an Italian club where interest has come from Fiorentina among others in the past, may well be the best option.
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Nabil El Zhar – The Moroccan is on loan at PAOK Salonika this season and is due back in the summer. At 22, his development has stalled and even in the Greek league, he has struggled to get a first team place, invariably being used as an impact substitute in the second half. Along with the likes of Philipp Degen, Stephen Darby and Steven Irwin, as well as some other players in the reserves, a cull of the first team squad is needed to ensure that young stars such as Suso and Raheem Sterling have a clear route to first team football, rather than be obstructed by players who will never make the grade.
Read more of David’s articles at the excellent Live4Liverpool
Bolton Wanderers boss Owen Coyle hopes to build his side around defensive duo Gary Cahill and Zat Knight next season.
Coyle is keen to hold on to both players, with Cahill in particular attracting interest from a number of bigger clubs.
"The two of them are outstanding centre-halves," Coyle told the Bolton News."I want to build a team around the likes of Gary Cahill and Zat Knight.
"If someone offers us as a football club something we can't refuse, then we'd have to look at that, we'd be crazy not to. But as a manager I want Gary here.
"People said to me prior to coming to the club that Zat had been in indifferent form, but he's been outstanding for me on a game-to-game basis.
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"He's a leader and enjoys himself and that's the type of player I want at the football club."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
England manager Fabio Capello looks set to pick Wayne Rooney in his squad for Euro 2012, as he dropped a hint regarding the player’s importance to the team.
The Manchester United forward has been handed a three match ban after being sent off against Montenegro in qualification, which will see him ineligible for all the group stage games of the tournament in Ukraine and Poland.
Due to the fact that he will miss a sizeable chunk of the competition, rumours have circulated that despite the attacker’s quality he would not be included in the squad.
However, Capello dropped a hint at Rooney’s involvement when talking about the senior players in the team.
“The young players are really good and ready to play with the seniors, and the experience of the seniors is really important,” he stated at a Club Wembley breakfast.
“During the games we need some leaders, people that know something. Jack Wilshere is incredible because he is so young. We also need the experience of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Scott Parker.
“You need this kind of player, plus Rooney, I hope,” he stated.
Capello also said that he is happy with the quality he has to choose from, and feels he can field a strong side next year.
“I am happy with my players. I have a lot of confidence in them.
“There are not many young players in the world who are better than the English ones. But you need to wait until the end of the season to understand if they are at the top and ready to play with the seniors.
“We had a gap between the oldest and the young. Now, with people like Wilshere, (Phil) Jones, (Danny) Welbeck, (Daniel) Sturridge – it’s really interesting.
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“It will be a really good team for the next Euros,” he concluded.
Aston Villa manager Gerard Houllier hailed his side’s patience as they beat Blackburn 4-1 at Villa Park on Saturday.The Villans were out of luck in the first half as Rovers kept their sheet clean, before an early second-half penalty taken by Ashley Young triggered a barrage of goals for the hosts.The win moves Villa to 12th on the Premier League table, and Houllier said he was impressed with how his side responded in the second half.”We tried to be too quickly decisive, but once we were patient, as we were in the second half, I think at some stage we began to break them down,” Houllier told Sky Sports.”They spread out well to defend. We just had to pass the ball, keep passing and keep trying to be patient. We passed the ball well.””In the first half I was not displeased by the performance of the players. Obviously after the penalty it was a different ball game, but I still think we kept passing the ball well.”Blackburn boss Steve Kean wrote the loss off as a “bad day” for Rovers, who slipped to 13th on the English Premier League table with the result and had captain Ryan Nelsen sent off during injury time.”I think the thing that killed us was the penalty,” Kean told Sky Sports. “We set out of the stalls to try and get a clean sheet. I thought in the end we should try and bounce back a little bit, but we let that goal affect us.””It’s a bad day in the office but we’ll look forward to the Fulham game and work hard in the training ground again this week.”
Arsene Wenger has spoken of Holland as one of his favourites at this World Cup and, after two solid but underwhelming victories against Denmark and Japan, he feels the Dutch have lost an inferiority complex that has dogged them so persistently since the 1974 World Cup final.
Anna Enquist, a Dutch psychoanalyst, said of that first lost World Cup final:
“1974 was actually very painful to us all. We can’t admit to ourselves that something can be so important. But it matters very much. There is still deep unresolved trauma about 1974. It’s a very living pain, like an unpunished crime.”
The reason for such pain is multi faceted: it was Holland’s first World Cup appearance since 1938, the national team boasted their strongest ever group of individual talents who had monopolised the European Cup with Ajax and Feyenoord (Cruyff, Neeskens, Krol, van Hanegem et al), and they played a brand that captivated the world football consciousness. What’s worse is the manner in which the final, played against serial iconoclasts West Germany, was lost: Cruyff snaked into the penalty area and was fouled for Neeskens to convert a penalty. Holland’s ball retention was mesmeric – insolent even – but instead of pushing forward to score another they wanted to solder home a point to the West Germans: to prove, unequivocally, that they were better. Jan Mulder, former Ajax player and now Dutch football columnist elaborates:
“It was a kind of complex to show their superiority, but in reality it was an inferiority complex…You have the memories of the World Cup finals you’ve seen on television…and now you are in that position. It’s horrible! The Dutch got vertigo.”
There have been false starts in the past where Holland have flattered and then faltered; the team’s showing at Euro 2008 was spectacular until eventually being undone by injury (to Robben) and superior tactics and execution by Russia in the quarters. But, two years on, the team’s nucleus is more seasoned and accustomed to more successes: Sneijder is off the back of an incredible season with Inter Milan, Robben was in blistering form for the last half of Bayern’s campaign, and Van Persie – despite his 5 month layoff – is a talent of sublime and utterly Dutch imagination. Winning solidly without too much admiration is probably being welcomed in Holland and the importance of dealing with the pressure of being favourites in a group is not lost on Arsene Wenger:
“The Dutch are one of my favourites. They have tremendous potential. If you look at their players, they must be among the main contenders. They no longer have an inferiority complex.”
His words also finely encapsulate the paradox of the Dutch condition since 1974: individually they should always be contenders, yet their output on the international stage has lacked consistency, belief, and teamwork at the critical moments. This year is no different; unconvincing and tactically faltering performances have been enough but nothing close to the potential that the team possesses.
A worry for the Dutch public will always be belief; if a team with Johan Cruyff, one of the greatest players in the history of football, and individuals who excelled in the team ethic of total football could not win in a World Cup final then how can Wesley Sneijder, Robin Van Persie and an injured Arjen Robben do any better? But I think it is also fair to say that any talk of an ‘inferiority complex’ will only truly be banished when victory on the international stage is achieved.
If you enjoyed this, you can follow me on Twitter
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Other articles about the Dutch national team history:
The best teams never to win the World Cup: Holland 1974
The media and its effects on international football
The Dutch Influence
Sources:
Brilliant Orange, David Winner
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Click image below to see a gallery of the Italian babes at the World Cup:
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Danny Wilson could be set for a loan move to Leeds United after falling down the pecking order at Liverpool, the Daily Record understands.
The 19-year-old has barely featured for the Reds since signing at the start of the 2010/11 season whilst Roy Hodgson was in the Anfield hotseat.
Sporadic appearances in Europa League ties and domestic cup games have been the only relief for Wilson, with current boss Kenny Dalglish now willing to let him leave on loan.
A return to former club Rangers was touted before the transfer deadlined whilst Blackpool have also been credited with an interest in the Scotland defender.
It’s now emerged that Leeds boss Simon Grayson has increased his interest in the centre half and could make a move now the loan window for Football League clubs has opened.
Grayson is desperate to bolster his side, especially in defence, after a poor start to the season which has see them win only two of their first six games.
Conceding goals has been the Whites’ main problem so far this season and Grayson is keen to bring Wilson in to shake up his backline.
It would certainly be a coup for the Elland Road boss, with the defender having won the SPL with Rangers and played in the Champions League as a 17-year-old before his move to Liverpool.
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The Premier League takes a break this weekend as the FA Cup takes centre stage. The 5th round sees some real David v Goliath encounters, as Crawley travel to Old Trafford to face Manchester United in the battle of the Red Devils. Elsewhere, Chelsea host Everton at Stamford Bridge in a tasty-looking all-Premiership tie, as Carlo Ancelotti and David Moyes look for something to cheer. There is also a nearly full list of fixtures in the Championship, while Celtic and Rangers go head-to-head in the Old Firm derby in the SPL. Here are the predictions from the newspaper journos…
LEEDS V NORWICH – Very little to separate these two promotion hopefuls, but Leeds are on a superb run of current form with just win in 18 League games. That and home advantage should see them shade it.
Shaun Custis (The Sun)
Home Team
Away Team
Chelsea
V
Everton
H
West Ham
V
Burnley
H
Leyton O
V
Arsenal
A
Celtic
V
Rangers
D
Crystal P
V
Sheffield U
H
Ipswich
V
Hull
H
Leeds
V
Norwich
D
N. Forest
V
Cardiff
H
Preston
V
QPR
A
Scunthorpe
V
Derby
A
West Ham v Burnley: It depends somewhat on how strong the team line-ups are but even West Ham should have enough strength in depth to win this one.
Continue to the NEXT PAGE…
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Andy Dunn (News of the World)
Home Team
Away Team
Chelsea
V
Everton
H
West Ham
V
Burnley
H
Leyton O
V
Arsenal
A
Celtic
V
Rangers
H
Crystal P
V
Sheffield U
D
Ipswich
V
Hull
H
Leeds
V
Norwich
H
N. Forest
V
Cardiff
H
Preston
V
QPR
A
Scunthorpe
V
Derby
A
Chelsea v Everton. Suddenly, there is a lot riding on this game with both teams looking to find a welcome distraction from their league struggles (albeit in different sections of the PL). Expect Chelsea to overcome an Everton side shorn of self-belief.
Martin Lipton (The Mirror)
Home Team
Away Team
Chelsea
V
Everton
H
West Ham
V
Burnley
H
Leyton O
V
Arsenal
A
Celtic
V
Rangers
H
Crystal P
V
Sheffield U
D
Ipswich
V
Hull
D
Leeds
V
Norwich
A
N. Forest
V
Cardiff
H
Preston
V
QPR
A
Scunthorpe
V
Derby
H
Preston v QPR: QPR look like a Premier League team in waiting while Phil Brown has struggled to make much impact at Deepdale. Three more comfortable points for Neil Warnock.