Netherlands boss Frank de Boer has defended his inclusion of Donny van de Beek in the Oranje squad. However, the coach caused confusion with his statistics around the midfielder.

Despite hardly playing for Manchester United this season, Van de Beek has kept his place in the Netherlands squad, while Steven Bergwijn has been dropped.

Asked at his press conference why Van de Beek isn’t in the same boat as Bergwijn, De Boer responded, “Have you seen how many minutes Van de Beek has made this year? He’s in the top seven or top six.

“It is therefore not the case that he has made few minutes, he is around 4000. Frenkie de Jong is in the top, he is around 5600 minutes. Fortunately Donny has played recently.”

It is unclear what stats De Boer has been looking at with van de Beek only playing 512 minutes in the Premier League this season. In all competitions, Van de Beek has only registered 1456 minutes on the pitch.




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