Round-Up of how the Dutchmen performed during week 24 of the Premier League.
- By Daniel Gutman
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Yet another dour weekend of football for England-based Netherlands natives ended with just one victory pooled between all eight Dutchmen plying their trade in the Premier League. That victory belonged to Southampton and the team’s winter signing Eljero Elia, who made his fourth consecutive start for the Saints. Manchester United barely scraped by a draw with West Ham courtesy of a late Daley Blind strike, whlist Newcastle and its Dutch trio were held to a draw by visitors Stoke City. Patrick van Aanholt was disappointing in Sunderland’s draw with Swansea, and Queens Park Rangers along with Leroy Fer fell to yet another defeat, courtesy of the aforementioned Southampton.
Coming up against the high-flying Saints, QPR were always going to have an uphill battle. Despite strong performances from Steven Caulker and Richard Dunne, the R’s crashed to their 15th loss of the season. Southampton’s Eljero Elia had a fairly quiet game before being subbed off late in the match for Dusan Tadic. Firing off a shot from inside the box that was saved by Robert Green, Elia created several scoring opportunities for his teammates to extend the scoreline, but none were capitalized on. On the other end of the pitch, Leroy Fer was restricted by Southampton’s midfield, and added nearly nothing to QPR’s disappointing play. Over in Wales, Patrick van Aanholt had another less-than spectacular outing against Swansea. Despite not being responsible for Kyle Naughton getting the chance to set up Ki Sung-Yeung’s goal, van Aanholt looked shaky tracking back, failing to show the brilliant form Sunderland fans know their left back can show.
On Sunday, Newcastle let a 1-0 home lead slip at the very end of the match, with substitute Peter Crouch’s 89′ goal canceling out Jack Colback’s second half strike. Krul made several saves, but largely did not have much to do during the match until the end, where he was unable to cope with the towering Crouch as the Englishman headed in his side’s goal to salvage a point. Vurnon Anita did nothing of note, with his midfield partner Colback doing the brunt of the work required. Its a wonder how he continues to get starts, as Newcastle is seemingly playing with nine-and-a-half outfield players instead of 10 every time the 25-year-old steps on the pitch. Janmaat put in a decent enough 90-odd minutes, not doing anything insanely spectacular but making no serious mistakes either. In the last match of the weekend, Manchester United’s Dutch duo nearly crashed to a defeat to West Ham United, before Daley Blind’s last gasp volley secured a point for the Red Devils. Blind played strongly the whole match, and Robin van Persie was extremely unlucky to not get a goal or two, with Adrian’s heroics keeping out many a United goal-bound shot.
Ron Vlaar, Leandro Bacuna, Dwight Tiendalli, Erik Pieters, Siem de Jong and Nathan Aké did not appear for their respective Premier League clubs this weekend.
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