Wrap-up of the performances of Dutch players on week 16 of the 2014/15 English Premier League season.

  • By Daniel Gutman
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Manchester United v Liverpool, Barclays Premier League, Old Trafford, Britain - 14 Dec 2014After a stellar week 15, the Oranje players endured a less-than optimal weekend of matches over the past three days. With just one victory total, Dutch players were limited to mostly underwhelming performances for their respective clubs. Robin van Persie, Ron Vlaar, Daryl Janmaat, Erik Pieters, and Leroy Fer took part in the action as the first half of the 2014/15 Premier League season approaches its end.

Kicking off the action were Ron Vlaar and Aston Villa, who fell to a 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion. Vlaar made his appearance as a late second half sub, and as such was unable to affect the match in a significant. Stoke’s Erik Pieters played the entirety of the Potters’ draw with Crystal Palace, but despite a solid second half showing was unable to stop right-sided Palace midfielder James McArthur from scoring an early goal. Finally, Arsenal demolished Newcastle and Daryl Janmaat 4-1 at the Emirates to wrap up Saturday’s matches. Janmaat fought hard to make the right flank his own and even got yellow carded for his troubles, but was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing Welbeck and on occasion Gibbs from blazing down the right side willy-nilly. Janmaat’s five tackles are nothing to sneeze at though- he was the most defensively active player on the pitch.

Robin van Persie provided a master class showing on Sunday against Liverpool as United hosted their bitter league rivals. An assist for Juan Mata’s late second half goal and a goal in the 70′ sealed a brilliant day at the office for van Persie and torrid showing for the Reds. His three attempts on target could have left RvP with a much larger goal tally had Brad Jones been even more off his game than he was as is, but van Gaal and his talismanic Dutch forward should nonetheless be proud of van Persie’s man-of-the-match performance.

On the last of the week’s matches, Leroy Fer and QPR faced off against an underachieving Everton at Goodison Park. 90 minutes, the R’s fell to a 3-1 defeat to slide back into the relegation zone. Fer, who was oddly played in a central role against the Toffees, was caught out more often than not and fared particularly poorly against Everton’s star midfielder Ross Barkley. Subbed off for Niko Kranjcar late in the second half, Fer’s adventure in center midfield was one of his worst showings the entire season.




Daniel Gutman (19 Posts)