Willem II will strengthen itself with a striking name in the fight against relegation. 33-year-old playmaker Abdenasser ‘Nasser’ El Khayati will sign a contract in Tilburg until the end of the season. The club has yet to confirm the news.
The Tilburg team still have nine games to avoid relegation from the Eredivisie. In that respect, the serious knee injury of winter acquisition Thijs Oosting was a major downer, he is still out for the time being. The Tilburgers have now fished in another (transfer-free) attacking midfielder with El Khayati. If all goes well, he will already be on the training field on Friday morning.
special story
The story of El Khayati is special. The Rotterdammer played in the youth academy of Excelsior, PSV and FC Den Bosch, among others, for the latter club he also made his professional football debut in 2008. He was then also under contract with NAC Breda, Olympiakos Nicosia (Cyprus) and KV Turnhout (Belgium), but he was unable to really break through as a professional. In 2014 he settled with Kozak Boys.
There, the technician impressed, and that earned him a transfer to Burton Albion in January 2015. With that club (where ex-international Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was the manager) he promoted from League Two to League One in England. In February 2016, he made the dream move to Queens Park Rangers, active in the Championship, the second level. There he again worked with Hasselbaink.
Most Dutch football fans will know El Khayati from his time at ADO Den Haag, which rented him from QPR in January 2017. Later he signed there permanently. The midfielder was considered an absolute trendsetter in the Eredivisie, but moved to Qatar SC in 2019. He returned to ADO in February 2021, his mission then was the same as now in Tilburg: to keep the club in the Eredivisie. That failed when, due to a defeat against Willem II, the club was relegated, after which El Khayati was left without a club.
Fitness?
Since the summer of 2021, the playmaker no longer has a club. He did, however, join the ESPN program several times as an analyst football talk, where he said in October, for example: ,,Not one Eredivisie club has specifically come forward, to be honest. Some intermediaries have informed them, and I also said to them: “Just indicate to clubs in the Netherlands that the finances are not very important”. No, the worst thing is to be without a club for a long time. How fit am I? I’m super fit. I train twice a day.”
With this video full of highlights, ADO Den Haag announced the return of El Khayati in 2021:
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.