After a World Cup break of just under two months, the premier league will resume on Friday. How are the clubs doing after fourteen rounds and what are the expectations for the second half of the season? For all eighteen clubs we take stock, with number 9 NEC in this part.
Read all articles in the section ‘Intermediate balance’ here!
Is the season going well so far?
NEC is well ahead in the ranking with ninth place, but the game tells a different story. Coach Rogier Meijer’s team is solid defensively (only Feyenoord, FC Twente and Heerenveen conceded fewer goals), but offensively poor (19 goals were scored, ten of which against FC Volendam and RKC). NEC gave itself some air by winning the last two games before the winter break, against Cambuur (0-1) and RKC (6-1).
If that had not happened, the club would now have been in the relegation zone and it would have been a crisis. Especially because NEC invested heavily in the selection with the arrival of Jasper Cillessen and Oussama Tannane last summer and wants to participate in the battle for the play-offs for European football. The team still has a long way to go before that.
Will it be an exciting transfer window?
To enforce a place in the top 8 (that place entitles you to participate in the play-offs for European football, provided that a club in the top 7 wins the KNVB Cup), NEC will be looking for an attacking player during the winter transfer period. strengthening. The club is looking for a winger to compensate for the lack of deep players in the selection. Although the strikers Landry Dimata and Pedro Marques were disappointing before the winter break, NEC only gets a new attack leader if a ‘lucky opportunity’ presents itself. Money lender Marcel Boekhoorn recently said at a supporters evening that he is willing to assist the club financially once again.
Who should we watch out for in the second half of the season?
NEC was quite dependent on Oussama Tannane in the first half of the season and that will probably not be any different after the winter break. The 28-year-old midfielder is displaying his class at NEC after a difficult year in which he left Vitesse and the Turkish Göztepe through the back door. He has two goals and five assists this season.
Tannane will be only too happy to continue that line, because he hopes to make a transfer to a top club in the future. If the playmaker continues to excel, there is a good chance that he will leave De Goffert after one season, where he is adored by the NEC fans despite his past at Vitesse.
Final score forecast
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