Tijjani Reijnders hardly need to know if they should smile or frown.
After completing a £ 46.5 million from AC Milan this summer, the Dutch midfielder enjoyed a striking start to his career in Manchester City and produced a beautiful lobbed pass to place the opening goal in a 4-0 win over Wolves, before he himself added a second.
That version, in the first weekend of the Premier League season. Was enough to earn the 27-year-old the player from the club. Nevertheless, he struggled to reach similar heights in the defeats such as Tottenham and Brighton that followed, and the international break has not brought any recovery into the fortune.
The Netherlands is currently the top of World Cup qualifying group G with 10 points and a target difference of seven points above Poland, with whom they pulled 1-1 in the Feijenoord stadium last Thursday, after they have played a match less. But neither that nor the 3-2 victory of Sunday at Lithuania in Kaunas, where Memphis Depay scored a brace to become the record position of the country of all time, have proved sufficient to silence criticism, with Reijnders opted for a special censorship.
60 million? I have not seen it in this international ‘
“It wasn’t Reijnders” Night, “said the online outlet football -firster of the midfielder display to Poland. “The midfielder started strongly with a powerful shot against the post, but then fell back and occasionally made a noticeably sloppy turnover. This allowed Polen to cause some danger.”
There were also Brickbats after the victory over Lithuania, when the former Dutch international Wim Rijsbergen, a veteran of the World Cup finale of 1974, suggested in De Telegraaf that Reijners could not live up to his price tag in Manchester City.
“With Reijnders we know that we have a man on the field for those who have paid Manchester City € 60 million,” said Rijsbergen. “That is many times more than the value of the Lithuanian team. But I didn’t see it in this international one.
Promising footsteps
“There was little space, and Reijnders, like [Jerdy] Schouten and [Jurrien] Wood came from position. That doesn’t help. “
Such judgments go with the territory after a controversial movement. As an export of several millions of euros, the inevitable performance of Reijnders under the microscope, whether it is from the Dutch media or their British counterparts. The latter is perhaps more appreciation for the unique demands of the Premier League, and the new arrivals in Bedding often require, but that will change quickly. The responsibility is on Reijnders to deliver more box-to-box versions of the quality that he produced against wolves.
Not that the Etihad believers are probably unnecessarily disturbed by a few bad reviews of the international efforts of their new husband. After all, Reijnders is only the second city player who scores and helps with his Premier League debut. The other was Sergio Agüero, who apparently did well.
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