Eredivisie thread

[Lowlandbrit]

Since it's such a popular shopping destination for clubs all over Europe, I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread for the Dutch league. Judging by the World Cup threads there are a couple of people on here that follow it, so hopefully we can get some (semi-)regular updates going on what's happening and who to watch.

Club	Games	Points	GD
PSV	34	84	+56
Ajax	34	82	+60
Feyenoord	34	63	+22
AZ	34	59	+17
FC Utrecht	34	53	+9
Heracles Almelo	34	51	-2
FC Groningen	34	50	-7
PEC Zwolle	34	48	+2
Vitesse	34	46	+17
N.E.C.	34	46	-5
ADO Den Haag	34	43	-1
SC Heerenveen	34	42	-15
FC Twente	34	40	-15
Roda JC	34	34	-21
Excelsior	34	30	-26
Willem II	34	29	-18
De Graafschap	34	23	-27
SC Cambuur	34	18	-46

Top Scorers:

[Lowlandbrit]

Right then, a month into the season and with the transfer window (mostly) closed, let's see what this season looks like.

Traditional big three:
Ajax
Formula under de Boer has been pretty consistent: solid but nothing special, shaky first half but strong at the end when the rest crumbles. Losing Blind is a major blow, a consistent player that provided stability and was their best player in about three or four positions. Really need some of their younger players to start living up to their potential.
Feyenoord
After some tough years on and off the field, coming second last season was a big deal. Unfortunately for them, this meant getting emptied out over the summer. They've made some good looking signings in midfield, and picking up Vermeer from Ajax to put in goal sent shockwaves around the league. Not so impressed with what they've done at the back or up front though (Khalid Boulahrouz and Colin Kazim-Richards, anyone?).
PSV
Perfect start to the season, probably have the best players in the league and did pretty well in the transfer window. Key players have signed new deals that should keep them around past January, but everyone has a price. The current squad should be able to win the league, and they'd better, because it's been too long for the fans. You worry for Cocu if he can't make it happen this year.

Title outsiders:
Twente
What to make of Twente? Brought in some promising players in the summer, often from under the nose of one of the big clubs. But when your best players leave just as they're starting to make a difference it's hard to compete, and 4 draws from 4 games is a poor start.
Vitesse
Since the slightly shady Abramovich related money arrived, everyone's been waiting for Vitesse to start challenging for the title. Last season it seemed they'd finally made the breakthrough, but they fell apart at the end so badly some people speculated they were trying to avoid Europe to avoid closer scrutiny into their ownership. They've played some nice stuff, but only have one point to show for it so far. Good players, but do they really care?

Other notables:
PEC Zwolle
Won the cup last season in a bizarre thrashing of Ajax, then beat them again to win the Dutch version of the Community Shield. They've made a great start despite losing some key players, but losing their keeper to Ajax at the end of the window won't help.
FC Dordrecht
Thanks to the horrible mismanagement of a number of traditional clubs there are a lot of small clubs in the Eredivisie this year, and none smaller than Dordrecht. How they still have their scouting department is a mystery, because after years of putting out decent teams in the second division they got promoted, and now seem to have managed to put together a somewhat competitive team, all on a non-existant budget with a squad of loan signings and sticky tape.
Heracles
Managed to stay up fairly comfortably for years with some impressive midtable finishes thrown in. Look absolutely awful so far this year though, and have already fired their manager. Very early days, but wouldn't be a shock if they stay bottom.

[James_182]

As someone who has started to follow the Dutch league a little, I appreciate this thread

Having looked at the squads of the big clubs in the Eredivisie, got to say I am really impressed with PSV's midfield and forward line. With Memphis Depay, Adam Maher, Luciano Narsingh, Georginio Wijnaldum, Andrés Guardado  and bringing back Luuk de Jong to Holland, I can't see beyond them this season for the title, and think they will end Ajax's dominance at the top over the last 4 years.

I agree with your points about Feyenoord , they have lost the backline that made up the Dutch World Cup defense, so its up to the veterans Joris Mathijsen and Khalid Boulahrouz now, though that Terence Kongolo looks good, so least more kids coming through for them, and so important that they kept Jordy Clasie as well.

Should promise to be an interesting campaign at the top end of the table anyway!

Would be grateful if you keep this thread going with your insight Lowlandbrit

[Lowlandbrit]

I agree with your points about Feyenoord, they have lost the backline that made up the Dutch World Cup defense, so its up to the veterans Joris Mathijsen and Khalid Boulahrouz now, though that Terence Kongolo looks good, so least more kids coming through for them

In theory it's a great, sensible idea to use experienced players for leadership and stability. In practice, it all falls down somewhat when Mathijsen is the one making all the mistakes.

Anyway, here's some Eredivisie trivia: the Ajax clubsong contains the line 'rood en wit wordt kampioen' (red and white will be the champions); when was the last time a team won the league that didn't have red and white as its two main colours?

Spoiler:

[Lowlandbrit]

Another month in the books, and the bottom of the table looks like it's starting to sort itself out (Heracles beat some amateurs in the cup, but otherwise have the media reaching for the record books for teams to compare them to), while a Memphis (as he likes to go by) injury has slowed PSV down and let things come together at the top. Other news and notes, featuring teams I haven't mentioned yet:

AZ
What a month in Alkmaar. Started out with Marco van Basten (1) as manager, but he had to take some time off for health reasons. Assistant Alex Pastoor (2) stepped in, but rumours swelled van Basten wasn't coming back. AZ said he was (but not as what), and it turned out he was taking a step back. So, Pastoor negotiated a new deal and switched jobs with van Basten got fired after failing to negotiate a deal, with all sorts of accusations being thrown around in the media by both sides (current employment status: ?????). Which left Dennis Haar (3) in charge, while AZ sorted out a deal for John van den Brom (4) to take over on a permanent basis (with Haar and van Basten staying on as assistants).

SC Heerenveen
Have a reputation for finding goalscorers (*results elsewhere may vary greatly, ranging from van Nistelrooy to Alves), and it's starting to look like Mark Uth might be the next one in line. Look for him to be linked to whoever gets promoted to the Premier League in the summer if he keeps it up. Young midfielder Daley Sinkgraven is the real name to look out for though, probably after a stopover at Ajax.

SC Cambuur
The other Frisian club has never spent more than two seasons at a time in the Eredivisie, but after their highest ever finish last season they've started well and look likely to break that streak. Albert Rusnák (one of the Man City loan army) looks a real touch of class in an otherwise pretty limited team. He's unlikely to ever get in the City side for anything much more important than the League Cup, but I could see him potentially being a nice little player for a team like Stoke or Everton in a few years.

ADO Den Haag
Big news over the summer was an agreed takeover by Chinese investors, but the money still hasn't actually arrived and it's all getting a bit embarassing. Season hasn't really gone to plan so far either, but with Heracles and Dordrecht occupying 2 of the 3 (possible) relegation spots it's hard to see them getting in too much trouble. Improvement probably starts with some stability at the very top, you feel there's enough talent there to challenge for a top half position.

[Lowlandbrit]

Not a huge amount going on; ADO still haven't got their money, Twente suffered their first loss and Heracles picked up their first win (6-1 against NAC, who promptly fired their manager and generally seem to be making a real effort to get involved in the relegation battle).

Meanwhile, in the second tier, NEC have already qualified for the promotion/relegation playoffs. It might not be the most interesting part of the table for outsiders, but I thought it might be handy to try and explain how that works:

-The relegation part is fairly simple: the team that finishes 18th in the Eredivisie is relegated, the teams that finish 16th and 17th go into the playoffs and get a chance to fight for their place. Replacing the bottom team is the champion of the Eerste divisie ('first division', officially Jupiler League which is slightly inconveniently also the name of the Belgian league). After that it gets a little tricky.

-The JL season is split into four 'periods' of 9 games. The team with the most points in each period (or the best eligible team that hasn't won one yet) gets a playoff spot, regardless of final position in the overall league (Sparta scraped in to the playoffs last year after finishing third in a period and 16th overall). The highest league finishers that didn't win a period are then added to give 8 teams playing for a chance to be promoted, that are seeded by final position in the (overall) league.

-In the first round two of the lowest seeded teams play eachother. The winner plays one of the Eredivisie teams in round two, in which two of the top seeded teams play eachother as well. Winners of round two play in round three for an Eredivisie spot (so there are basically two parallel competitions, each with one Eredivisie side).

[kingraf]

Clever name, mate. Took me longer than it should have to get it, as I'm fluent in Afrikaans, and thus have a functional knowledge of Dutch

[Lowlandbrit]

Vrolijk Kerstfeest (en een gelukkig nieuw jaar) all of you; Dutch football is having its winter break, so with the league at the halfway point I figured it was time for an update.

-At the top:
Very much a two horse race developing, with PSV firmly in the driving seat. They have the best players, but I'm still not convinced by Cocu as a coach. If they keep everyone in January they should be able to hold on, although if they let Ajax close the gap they'll probably regret it. Feyenoord haven't fallen off as far as some feared, but are clearly missing a little bit compared to the top two.
-At the bottom:
Dordrecht's lack of quality has become increasingly obvious, Heracles have dug themselves out of trouble after that first win over NAC, who have very much dug themselves in. ADO are somehow still in the mix despite having the league's top scorer.
-The rest:
PEC and Cambuur have continued to punch above their weight, just really well put together teams with a few really decent players (for this level). Excelsior doing better than most expected too. Vitesse probably the biggest disappointment so far, plenty of good players but haven't really built a team and end up being far too inconsistent.
-Favourite player so far:
He's still very much rough diamond and it's early days yet, but Ajax's Anwar El Ghazi offers an extra spark whenever he's on the field. Not even the best player on his own team at this point, but has something that makes you sit up and pay attention.

If anyone has any thoughts of their own I'd love to hear them, or if anyone wants to sound smart in the pub about a player they've been linked with I'm happy to try and help.

[Guest]

Luuk De Jong's 17th, 18th and 19th goals of the season helped PSV Eindhoven to extend their lead at the top of Eredivisie, following a 4-2 win at AZ Alkmaar on Friday. Yes, that's Luuk De Jong, who at Newcastle United couldn't hit a barn door. He is now banging goals in for fun, while the 'supposed' better brother we signed, continually busts his lung & has hardly kicked a ball all season. Typical.

[monty junior]

I always though De Jong was a good player and i was pleased when we signed him, i think mainly he was just bereft of confidence after his injury ridden spell with Monchengladbach! Having said that didn't Altidore who scored twice in 60 odd PL games score over 30 goals in a season there? shows the standard of defending there. Hardly any good defenders these days, gone are the days of Maldini, Nesta and co.

[Lowlandbrit]

De Jong didn't exactly hit the ground running, but he's back in a league where he knows he can score and he's playing on easily the best team in the league. As far as Altidore goes, big physical attackers tend to do well here, but it's not always easy to predict how they'll do in a league where the defenders hit back a bit more.

Hardly any good defenders these days, gone are the days of Maldini, Nesta and co.

Experience is so important there, and players these days are thrown in the deep end and written off so early. Not many (top) clubs seem to be able to afford patience, and it ends up making everyone worse off in the long run.

[FootballLight]

I think that Memphis Depay is a quality winger. Spurs certainly need to be looking to get him. Anyone that needs a winger, sign this guy. Will be top class one day I can assure you.

Didn't De Jong have a loan spell at Newcastle last season and barely did anything? Eredivisie can only produce half decent defenders. Bruno Martins Indi being one of them, Vlaar another, Moisander etc. You don't get much quality in Holland. But if you ever need a goalscorer at a cheap price, Holland is the direction to look for them bottom clubs. Just a tad late though now.

[Lowlandbrit]

In to the final stretch, and while PSV losing at home to Ajax has postponed the inevitable a little, it's probably not enough for an exciting finish. 21 wins in 25 games, most goals scored and fewest conceded; PSV have been dominant.
Further down the league: AZ and Vitesse have been on fire, Twente are struggling, PEC and Cambuur look more like what was expected at the start of the season, and Dordrecht have shown just enough signs of life at the bottom to keep it interesting.

The more interesting news recently has been on the managerial front. The prospect of missing out on the title for the first time has apparently convinced Frank de Boer he wants to stay where he is. Will it last if he gets a serious offer in the summer, and has had some time to let the season settle, though? Meanwhile, Fred Rutten has decided one year at Feyenoord is quite enough for him, with former players/current coaches van Gastel and van Bronckhorst the early favourites to replace him. Lot of talk about Rutten going to some sort of DoF role at Twente, although that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen (not least because they've been having financial issues - update: Twente have now received a 3 point penalty).

[Lowlandbrit]

PSV are the new champions with three games to go, while Dordrecht have been relegated (they'll be replaced by NEC, who won the second tier a couple of weeks ago, have won all four periods and are trying to become the first team to get more than 100 points).

Big question now is what sort of squad PSV will be left with next season. Everyone knew going in that they'd set themselves up for one last shot at the title, and reportedly they've already started to accept offers. Depay is obviously the big name there, and PSV are supposedly looking for around 20 million pounds for him. He's the top scorer so far, with a lot of late winners/equalisers... but more than once he was probably the main reason they needed a late goal. He shows flashes of brilliance, but has also been invisible for large stretches of games. Maybe he's a little bored and just needs a better level of competition to kick on to the next level, but if you asked most people who PSV's key player was he might struggle to make the top 3.
Speaking of which, it's kind of hard to believe there have been that many scouts in town for Depay when PSV were pretty easily able to make Guardado's deal permanent. If they can hold on to him and de Jong they could have a decent foundation for next season, although they'll need to buy well.

-One place they could probably shop fairly cheaply is the imploding FC Twente, who appear to have been following the Leeds United business model. Jesus Corona will be a popular target.
-You have to feel a little sorry for Colin Kazim-Richards. Was seen as a bit of strange signing and hasn't exactly been a goal machine, but he works hard, holds the ball up well and offers some experience and leadership to the team. The fans like him, he seems to like being there, and his Turkish club wants rid. The problem is that Dirk Kuyt is coming back to Rotterdam, and they're also trying to bring back Celtic's John Guidetti, both very popular with the fans.
-PEC Zwolle have taken their defence of the cup to the final, where they'll meet FC Groningen. First time the cup final hasn't featured PSV or Ajax since 2009.
-Giovanni van Bronckhorst will be the next manager at Feyenoord. FC Utrecht have lined up Erik ten Hag, who's currently in charge of the Bayern Munich reserves.

[Lowlandbrit]

Between the end of the regular season and the start of the summer sales, there's the small matter of the playoffs. One set for the final EL spot, one to decide which teams will play in the Eredivisie next season:

-European Football:
1st round:
Heerenveen 3 - 2 Feyenoord (1-0/2-2)
PEC Zwolle 2 - 3 Vitesse (1-2/1-1)
Final:
Heerenveen 4 - 7 Vitesse (2-2/2-5)

There was also a Fair Play ticket awarded. FC Twente were top of the rankings, but decided not to take it due to their financial issues. Next in line: Go Ahead Eagles, who accepted it and then promptly got relegated. Although since Utrecht managed to lose to a side from Luxembourg a few years ago it might not really make much difference.

-Promotion/relegation:
1st round:
Almere City FC 2 - 3 De Graafschap (1-1/1-2)
FC Oss 1 - 2 VVV Venlo (1-2/0-0)
2nd round:
De Graafschap 2 - 0 Go Ahead Eagles (1-0/1-0)
FC Volendam 3 - 2 FC Eindhoven (2-1/1-1)
FC Emmen 2 - 3 Roda JC (0-1/2-2)
VVV Venlo 0 - 4 NAC Breda (0-1/0-3)
3rd round:
De Graafschap 1 - 0 FC Volendam (0-0/1-0)
Roda JC 2 - 2 NAC Breda (0-1/2-1)

For the second season in a row, three teams got relegated. De Graafschap are a bit of a yo-yo side, Roda were relegated for the first time last season after struggling for a few years (mainly financially).

[Holymiky]

Thanks to all of you for updating this thread, i'm a Chelsea fan so obviously i prioritise Chelsea matches but i really enjoy watching the Dutch league when i can and this is a nice source of information.

[Hero]

Lowland, now the seasons over, who for you have been the players that are ones you'd expect some of the bigger leagues to be looking at? Already Depay's been snaffled but will others like Clasie, Vilhena etc be taking the step up?

[Holymiky]

In January there was talk of Vilhena going to Southampton, i think talks were going on but they fell through obviously.

[Lowlandbrit]

Thanks to all of you for updating this thread, i'm a Chelsea fan so obviously i prioritise Chelsea matches but i really enjoy watching the Dutch league when i can and this is a nice source of information.

Thanks, I was hoping for some help but all the other Dutch based posters seemed to disappear after the World Cup. Chelsea should really find a way to get Bertrand Traoré a work permit by the way, by the end of the season he was probably the best striker in the league.

Lowland, now the seasons over, who for you have been the players that are ones you'd expect some of the bigger leagues to be looking at? Already Depay's been snaffled but will others like Clasie, Vilhena etc be taking the step up?

PSV and Feyenoord both had a bunch of players they convinced to hang around for one more season last year (for slightly different reasons) so I'd imagine that's where most of the action will be. Clasie and Vilhena are definitely off; Vilhena wanted out in January already, and Feyenoord throwing away 3rd place and missing out on European football means Clasie is gone too. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they both end up at Southampton, and they could lose others too, although I'm not sure any of them are PL material (yet).
At PSV the two main ones to look out for are Wijnaldum and Jetro Willems, after that it gets a bit riskier. There was a suggestion that there were clubs looking at their keeper Zoet, but I can't imagine why; at Ajax Davy Klaassen would be a great signing for someone, but the main rumours around the club so far are the papers trying hard to suggest Cillessen to Man Utd is a thing, and the club hoping that someone will come in for one or more of their slightly disappointing former stars of tomorrow like Boilesen. Heerenveen have already agreed to sell Uth to Hoffenheim, and supposedly Swansea are signing their keeper Nordfeldt. They have a couple of really exciting young Scandinavians that could use more time but might get interest too; Tjaronn Chery from Groningen is going somewhere, and seems to have a fairly wide range of suitors both in terms of location and level. They only just signed Rusnak in January, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone made them an offer; Twente will almost certainly be emptied out, Castaignos might get a shot abroad but hasn't really impressed, Jesus Corona is the one to go for there, possibly Ziyech too. Ould-Chikh will get offers, but it's a bit soon for me. I think most of Vitesse's best players are there on loan, and AZ's are probably more likely to go to the big Dutch clubs (Ajax already signed Gudelj, Berghuis could go to PSV). There are a couple of other decent players spread around the league (like NAC's Tighadouini), but it'd probably be better for everyone if they went to a bigger Dutch club before going abroad.

[Holymiky]

I will try and post here more often, I watched quite a few matches in the season just finished so I plan to do the same next season.

Traore is looking promising he did well in our pre season last year and I can see big things happening for him in the future.

[Lowlandbrit]

We're at the international break and the window is closed, so let's get this rolling again for 2015/16:

PSV
Kept hold of Guardado and de Jong, who provide a rare mix of talent and experience for this level, but who's going to step up and replace the stars they sold? Should be contenders, but don't look quite as good (yet) as last season.
Ajax
Perfect start to the domestic season, but not so great in Europe where they managed to throw away both legs of their CL qualifier. Squad is talented, but ridiculously young; once upon a time they might have had a great team in a few years, now probably more likely to be a PL team of the week. Could win the league, could be a trainwreck.
Feyenoord
Did some pretty sensible looking deals for experienced players, didn't lose too much in the window and have made a pretty good start to the season (despite losing to PSV last week). Can't shake the feeling it's all going to end in tears though, mainly because I'm not sure what to make of van Bronckhorst as a manager yet.
Vitesse
Apparently did still own some of their players, because Pröpper and Vejinović went off to replace Wijnaldum and Clasie. Don't follow the Chelsea reserves enough to know how they might do this season.
FC Utrecht
Had a nervy transfer window thanks to speculation clubs wanted their striker Haller. Would have made them an immediate and enormous profit considering they'd only just signed him permanently after having him on loan last season, but they'd spent the summer building their attack around him.
FC Twente
Chaos all summer thanks to the financial problems, lost a lot of players over the summer (but not quite as many as some thought they would) and haven't started well. Manager has already been fired, which seems to have been done largely to keep the fans happy. Good starts by two of the promoted clubs aren't helpful.

Once again; feel free to add any thoughts and/or questions you might have as and when they come to you.

[Holymiky]

I thought I would weigh in as I am a Chelsea fan, I have seen some of the loan players at Vittesse playing for our Under 21’s.

It’s worth mentioning that our Academy team in which some of those players have featured in has been extremely successful in the last few years especially, winning 4 FA youth cups in that period.

We also won the UEFA Youth League.

Isaiah Brown – Seen some of him playing, energetic and exciting forward player with pace in bundles.

Dominic Solanke – Again another exciting forward player with plenty of potential.

Nathan – Not sure about him as he has only just joined Chelsea and as far as I am aware I haven’t seen him play.

Danilo Pantic – Again not seen much of him as he has only just joined Chelsea.

Lewis Baker – I think that Jose Mourinho is a fan of him and rightly so, whenever I have seen him he has looked impressive and spent some time on loan last season at Sheffield Wednesday and then MK Dons making 4 and 12 appearances respectively (he scored 3 goals for MK Dons). He plays usually as an attacking midfielder just behind the striker as far as I can tell. I can see him breaking into our first team in the future.

Hope that gives some insight.

[Lowlandbrit]

International break time, so let's do an update with some other teams:

Heracles
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago they were winless, now they've been flirting with top spot. Much like last season they'll probably settle down in midtable eventually, although if Oussama Tannane can stay on form (and out of trouble), who knows?
SC Cambuur
What a difference a year makes. Started so well last season but haven't won yet. Look rubbish at the back, but might just have enough goals in them to stay out of trouble. Fortunately for them De Graafschap look worse.
Excelsior
The club that has a stadium that sits well under 4000, and at various times might as well have just been called 'Feyenoord B'. Useful gauge of the rest since there's probably something not right with teams below them.
PEC Zwolle
PEC are starting to become a bit of a fixture in the top half. Have a habit of making good loan signings, Lars Veldwijk is proving why Forest spent that money on him (and also why he shouldn't have gone to Forest).
Roda JC
Their return to the top division has gone well on the field; pretty solid at the back with good pace up front. Weren't the most financially sound club anyway though, and now they're on their second shirt sponsor of the season after the first company went bust, and are struggling to pay their rent.

And finally, some trivia: more than half of the Dutch professional clubs are playing on artificial pitches this season. Six of them are in the Eredivisie (ADO, Cambuur, Excelsior, Heracles, PEC, Roda).
Plenty of people aren't too happy about it, but it seems to be a pretty unstoppable development.

[Lowlandbrit]

Saint Nicholas has headed back to Spain for another year, so with the winter break (and January window) approaching I thought I'd take a look at some of the potential transfer targets of 2016:

Twente
-Hakim Ziyech: very good player on a very bad team who looks increasingly (and, at this point, incredibly) fed up about it. Lot of people were disappointed that he chose to play for Morocco and thought Blind should have made a bigger effort. Would be surprising (and rather awkward) if he doesn't leave in January.

Ajax
-Anwar El Ghazi: think Cristiano Ronaldo, but not as good. He's clearly a big fan, but could probably do with toning down the tribute act a little. Has the whole package though.
-Riechedly Bazoer: only just turned 19, he's been compared to a young Yaya Toure and it's really not hard to see why. I'd expect someone to make an offer the club can't refuse in the summer.
-Kenny Tete: only really broke through this season, but already looks like the best Dutch RB. Very good pace and a lot better defensively than most.

Feyenoord
-Sven van Beek: Feyenoord have been putting out a lot of good young defenders recently and van Beek might be the best one. Obvious second chance for teams that wish they'd signed de Vrij.
-Terence Kongolo: been moved out to left back for most of the season because of their central depth, in danger of getting stuck with the same 'versatile' label as Daley Blind. Not as hot as he was last year, but still a great prospect.

PSV
-Gaston Pereiro: big money signing in the summer, has shown glimpses of being very, very good. Needs to show he can do it more regularly though.
-Luuk de Jong: it's easy to forget he's still only 25. He's scoring enough to surely tempt someone to give him another chance, but I'm not really sure what the best level for him would be.

[Lowlandbrit]

Time for a 2016 update, let's start with the (non-)transfer news:
-Ziyech's still here. Not too uncomfortable yet, but that's mainly because they're not losing (thanks to him).
-Apparently teams didn't wait for the summer to make an offer Ajax couldn't refuse for Bazoer, but he chose to stay in Amsterdam for now instead of moving to Napoli.
-NEC got to keep their top scorer Christian Santos, only to announce this week they're not going to start him anymore because his contract runs out in the summer. First game into this policy, they brought him on at halftime because they were behind...
-Cambuur sold their striker Ogbeche to relegation rivals Willem II, who supposedly found out about a transfer clause. Extremely hard to see Cambuur staying up without him.

Other news:
-Feyenoord lost five straight Eredivisie games for the first time in their history, and then went to Amsterdam for de Klassieker (the Classic) and made it six. If van Bronckhorst can't figure out a way to get them back on track, his managerial career might be a very short one.
-In a nice bit of cup magic, VVSB are the first amateur side to make the semi-finals since 1975 after beating second tier Den Bosch.
-Vitesse manager Peter Bosz moved to Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv (the money was "absolutely" part of it) and they haven't really got going since.
-There have been a number of ugly fan incidents in the past month; racist chants by ADO fans towards Ajax's Bazoer, Feyenoord fans showing up at summer signing Vejinovic's house and making death threats, and Ajax fans hanging an effigy of former keeper Vermeer before the game against Feyenoord. Some action has been taken, but it hasn't exactly been tough.

[Lowlandbrit]

Three games to go, and the only thing separating Ajax and PSV is goal difference. PSV have the better squad, but Ajax have generally been more ruthless against lesser teams. The second tier has been won by Sparta, the oldest Dutch professional club, meaning there could be three sides from Rotterdam in the top division next season for the first time since '07/'08.

Two people have scored more than 20 goals so far: Luuk de Jong was pretty much expected, but Vincent Janssen was playing for Almere City in the second tier just last season, after being being released by Feyenoord. The idea of him playing for the national team was something of a running joke on tv pretty much right until he got called up last month for the friendlies against France and England.

The cup final will be Feyenoord vs Utrecht. Last time they played eachother in the final was 13 years ago; Utrecht won 4-1, and their last goal was scored by Dirk Kuyt.

[Hero]

What do you think to Janssen? From what I've seen of him he's a player who could very much adapt to the Premier League as he's a old school centre forward, reminds me a lot of Nistelrooy.

[Lowlandbrit]

The thing about him is that he's pretty much the Dutch Jamie Vardy; nobody expected it and everyone's spent all season waiting for the wheels to come off, but the longer it goes on, the harder it is to explain why that would happen. He had a couple of poor games after the England game, but then he scored 4 last weekend so it hardly counts as a slump. I'd worry about him making the step up so quickly, but then again he's scored nearly as many goals this season as in his last two seasons combined, despite moving up a level.

[Lowlandbrit]

PSV won the title after Ajax failed to beat De Graafschap on the final day of the season. You probably have to say the best team won, but it's hard not to look back on it as one Ajax threw away. Frank de Boer decided it was time to move on, he'll be replaced by former Vitesse manager Peter Bosz. Dirk Kuyt finally won a trophy with Feyenoord after a 2-1 win over former club Utrecht.

-European Football Playoffs:
1st round:
FC Groningen 3 - 6 Heracles Almelo (2-1/1-5)
PEC Zwolle 2 - 5 FC Utrecht (0-0/2-5)
Final:
Heracles Almelo 3 - 1 FC Utrecht (1-1/2-0)

Now to the bottom of the table, where things got a bit farcical thanks to the Dutch FA announcing half way through the playoffs that they wanted to relegate Twente for all their financial shenanigans. This meant that they would take the spot of the highest ranked relegated side, which has predictably become a disaster since Twente are appealing and now everyone's left in limbo.

-Promotion/Relegation Playoffs:
1st round:
MVV Maastricht 4 - 2 FC Volendam (2-1/2-1)
Almere City FC 8 - 2 FC Emmen (4-1/4-1)
2nd round:
MVV Maastricht 1 - 3 De Graafschap (0-1/1-2)
Go Ahead Eagles 3 - 2 VVV Venlo (1-0/2-2)
FC Eindhoven 1 - 2 NAC Breda (1-0/0-2)
Almere City FC 2 - 6 Willem II (0-1/2-5)
3rd round:
Go Ahead Eagles 5 - 2 De Graafschap (4-1/1-1)
NAC Breda 3 - 4 Willem II (2-1/1-3)

So it's Cambuur and Twente/De Graafschap to be replaced by Sparta Rotterdam and Go Ahead Eagles for next season.

[westisbest]

Paper talk i know, but back in january Christain Santos was a name touted with us.
Knew nothing would come of it as we were so bad.

Watched a few youtube videos of him and he looks decent enough.

[Lowlandbrit]

Played in the German and Belgian lower tiers before NEC gave him a trial when they were in the second tier last year. Was a 'one year plus another if we like you' type deal, only he turned out to be better than anyone expected and I think he decided he'd rather wait and see what he can get as a free agent than leave in January. Would have been good value, but not sure he could have kept you up.

[westisbest]

I don't think Messi Ronaldo & Bale would have kept us up we were that bad

Don't watch much football outside epl championship and a bit of spl, but will keep an eye out to see where he goes.

Probably do well in the prem.

[Lowlandbrit]

The big story this season: is this Feyenoord's year? They lost to Ajax this weekend, but still have a 3 point lead with 6 games to go. The last time they won the title the league top scorer was Ruud van Nistelrooij, and Edwin van der Sar was still in goal for Ajax.

And now some people who have played in the Eredivisie this year to make you feel old:
- Patrick Kluivert's son
- A player named after Jari Litmanen
- A player born in the 21st century

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