The Eredivisie so far this season has showed us the two main aspects of the Dutch football league, Strong attacks and awful defending.
At the time of writing we are only 7 weeks into the current campaign and so far there have been four 3-3 draws! Not something you'd expect from your usual European football league, unless of course its at youth level where the score tends to be quite high due. Well maybe that's it, we all know that the Dutch are famous for producing excellent youth players and that the league is mainly made up of youth players. So because of the fact that the average age is so low then maybe the Eredivisie is just forecasting that young players don't have enough experience to know how to set up when they lead to make sure the opposition don't get back into the game, or maybe there just full off too much energy that they are capable of attacking relentlessly for the full 90 minutes, I like to think a bit of both.
What about if the Dutch just see football as apart of entertainment and when they play that's there main ambition not to win but to entertain, is this possible though to entertain even if you don't win? I and I like to think that anyone else that frequently watches dutch football would agree that its better to entertain and lose than to play anti-football but win. Even though the national team managed to reach the world cup final we all know that dutch football is going through a difficult phase as it doesn't have a big enough talent pool to select a national team that can play the dutch way successfully(the world cup final only demonstrated this) ,especially now that other national teams are continuing to develop and have constant funding to make sure they achieve success it is become ever harder for the dutch to dominant world football again. Even more so now that they have passed all there secrets onto Spain who are now dominating the world of football and they might just have the best team football anyone has ever seen since the team of 74'.
So at the moment in the Eredivise the league standings for the top 8 are as follows:
1st PSV
2nd PEC Zwolle
3rd FC Twente
4th Sc Heerenveen
5th Vitesse
6th Gronnigen
7th Ajax
8th Feyenoord
Nobody expected Zwolle to get off to such a great start although if you look closely there opening games were all against teams they beat last season, but nothing to take away from the team as they have played excellently and showed off there attacking capabilities with Fred Benson the talisman upfront.
PSV although they are in first place have showed signs of excellence but also vulnerability, there defense without Rekik (whose currently injured) and Bruma would have been nothing without these two as they have saved there team on too many occasions so far, also there are struggling to find a suitable center forward to be clinical in front of goal as Tim Matavz hasn't shown any intent when given chances this season and so many of there goals have came from there superb wingers of Bakkali and Depay.
FC Twente have been a pleasant surprise this season after having a slightly disappointing campaign last year. Tadic has been superb and is showing that he is one of the best players in the league as he continues to find holes in any teams defense with 4 goals and 5 assists in 540 minutes of playing time is rather impressive. Ebecillo, Koppers and Promes have all been excellent as well and have played a big part in there current success.
Sc Heerenveen have been a great team to watch this year as they have continued to provide there fans with goals so far with Finnbogason scoring 9 in 6 matches so far, this stat alone shows the attacking intent the Frisian team have.
Gronnigen have done well this season with Adorjan on loan from Liverpool being a particular highlight of there team as he proves to be an exciting prospect to watch out for.
Ajax, Ajax, Ajax well what can you say:? We all know that Eriksen and Alderweireld were going to leave but we didn't realize how badly it would affect the Amsterdamers even though it looked like they made suitable replacements. It seems bizarre that they spent so much money on Mike Van der Hoorn when they seem to have done what they always do and full the position internally with Denswill. However since the departure of Eriksen and Alderweireld there attacks seem to be blunt and have no intent or intelligence and there defending is sluggish ad sloppy with too many mistakes being made. Hopefully though Frank de Boer can find away to solve the current problems as this proves to be the biggest task in his manager career and if he can manage to win the title for a 4th consecutive time it will show the world what a great manager he is.
Feyenoord have also lacked creativity in attack as they can only seem to score when Graziano Pelle is involved something that needs addressing although Jean Paul Boetius return has been instantly effective.
So the Eredivisie so far has proved to be completely unpredictable with Zwolle and PSV the front runners with Ajax slacking in 7th place, its going to be an interesting season to watch to see how all the problems unveil.
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