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Wijnaldum optimism gets serious reality check

9 years ago
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Georginio Wijnaldum was in optimistic mood in the lead up to Holland’s crucial European Championships qualifier with Turkey on Sunday afternoon.

Wijnaldum pre match:

“We now have to win three times and I believe we can, it (losing to Iceland) was a huge blow but we’re all professionals and the bonus is the match against Turkey. We must be positive, we can still go to the European Championships.

“We should not go there (Turkey) with the idea to grab a point, the Netherlands should always want to win.

“I know how it is to play a final tournament and I don’t want to miss next year (in France).”

In the event, the Newcastle midfielder was actually dropped and watched a dismal first half, sitting alongside Tim Krul and Vurnon Anita on the subs bench.

The Dutch going in 2-0 down at the break after putting in a terrible performance.

At half-time Wijnaldum replaced de Vrij but it made little difference, with former Newcastle loan player Luuk de Jong then joining him with 16 minutes to go as a replacement for Daley Blind, son of the manager.

Yilmaz then added a third with five minutes remaining, to make it a crushing 3-0 scoreline, with Wijnaldum’s hopes of three wins in a row in tatters.

Holland can’t now automatically qualify and are two points behind third placed Turkey with three games to play, the third placed teams going into a play-off for qualification.

Newcastle’s Dutch contingent are now relying on Turkey slipping up to have any chance at all of making the play-off.

Danny Blind has become the first ever manager of Holland to lose his first two competitive matches.

Whilst the 3-0 defeat was the worst in a competitive game since England stuffed them 4-1 in Euro ’96.

A small positive for one United player is that Daryl Janmaat may get a recall after right-back Gregory van der Wiel was booked and will now be suspended for the next match against Kazakhstan in October.

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