- Jul 29, 2011
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However, if we'd waited a year and he'd continued to be as good as he was last season then we probably wouldn't be able to compete with the real money clubs at that point? Can't win sometimes - had loads of people saying we should have bought the likes of Martial or Depay the previous season before they became too expensive. I think that's what we did here.Dirk Kuyt said in an interview (I think it was Sky Sports), that Janssen moved to the premier league too soon. That the difference between the Eredivisie and Premier League is too much for an unexperienced player. And it should not be expected of such a player to perform straight away.
I agree with what he had to say. Eriksen, Vertonghen and Alderweireld had over 100 league games before coming to England. Kuyt played over 200 games before he moved to Liverpool. Our three former Ajax players performed well in their first season in England, and I believe it was their experience that helped them. Eriksen would have struggled if we had signed him two years earlier.
I think it was too tempting signing Janssen, because he was top scorer in Eredivisie last season. He had only played at the highest level in Netherlands for one season, before movig to England.
He'll be lucky if he is not sold in the summer. Pochettino has let players go before after only one season. Example: Stambouli, Fazio, N'jie (with Poch, loaning out a player might as well mean he is sold)