Where would you play him though? Can be play on the right?
To me he CAN, but that wouldn't be his best position. But either way, as far forward and playing for as long as possible, is the best for him.
He essentially is a Dutch Scholes in terms of movement, speed, thought, box presence, etc. I believe his best role in our current shape is where Bruno plays, but he's a different style of player than Bruno with more shorter, quicker and intricate touches, more movement off the ball to receive the ball in space, rather than being the QB from the middle of the park.
Ajax attacked like a unit where 4/5 players would move the ball together, change positions on the fly to end up in an advanced position - if you see his being season (2018/2019) a lot of his goals or assists were from being in the box. We on the other hand rely on less players to move the ball, but use pace and longer passes and rely on 1of our 2/3 players to make a final dash into the box e.g. quick pass-and-go with Rash & Bruno through ball to Martial/a shot; that relies a lot on physicality and pace.
If we aren't going to carve a space for him, I'd put him on the right of a front 3, but not to provide width, but to exchange passes with the more central Bruno. If he plays on the right of a front three, then I don't think AWB will benefit having him in front of him in regards to getting balls into the box, but AWB will benefit from more pass-and-gos, having a free man to pass to and defensive line breaking runs. I notice on the right that we don't regularly get someone running in behind and the ball being passed to that runner. That is where I think AWB can benefit, as it hides his lack of crossing ability. If VdB or AWB get in behind the line, you'll just need to smash it across the box.
The thing is, unless Ole is willing to try this against teams what we should beat, then the VdB project will fail if he comes on with 12 minutes to go, or doesn't get a good run of 4/5 games.
Yesterday i would have tried Bruno sitting in a deeper QB position:
Or
I'd personally like to see us go forward with the following formation against a weaker team with a little more attacking punch:
These are his highlights from his most standout season, look at his positioning, short passes, short movement into space, runs behind the defense INSIDE of the box, etc:
I think ultimately this quote says it the best:
In July 2018, he rejected an offer made by Italian club
Roma citing that "
Ajax is the right place for his development".
[38]
I have no more posts left for today so I need to extend this post. But look at this post and see the issues we have with no clever, inbetween-the-lines players:
https://threader.app/thread/1324357723278987265