Joost Van Aken

[theowlsman]

I remember stating that I reckoned he'd turn out to be a good signing for us.

 

I guess it's a case of wait and see. Can't see any football taking place anytime soon though.

[soldierboyblue]

55 minutes ago, lanzaroteowl said:

 

Pretty sure the £4M tag was from the local media.

I rest my case your honour 

[Inspector Lestrade]

Wouldn't give up on him yet, he had one bad game and a couple of iffy ones, if the bad game hadn't been against them then he might not be as tarnished as much. 

 

Can see him turning into a decent player.  

[WalthamOwl]

Looked a poor player so far. Personally would like us to move him on for any sort of half decent fee. 

[bladeshater]

27 minutes ago, sweetsheri said:

Scariest thing is he was chosen out of 200 CB's scouted...

 

We must have been scouting the Meadowhall league

Hope not it's ceased to exist 3 years ago

[beloved_aunt]

1 hour ago, trev said:

I know this has been said before...about a lot of our players.

 

But I can see him making a decent defensive midfielder.

 

He used to play in midfield and on the wing and he clearly has ability on the ball.

 

I just can't see him ever being physical enough to be a central defender. But maybe as a deep lying midfielder he could use his undoubted passing ability to better effect.

 

Or...he could just not be very good.

 

I always thought his ideal position would be spare man in a back three. Why I'm surprised Jos never played him there when he gave people like Jones a go in that position.

[pazowl55]

50 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:

I know it's unfashionable but I like Van Aken.

I reckon he just needs to acclimatise to the Hillsborough crowd etc

We got a few players that need to acclimatise to the Hillsborough crowd. Basically they get abuse every week.

 

In behind closed doors games we may see the best of the likes of Van Aken, Pelupessy and Rhodes.

[Owls-Fan]

I remember media reports said he’d been linked to Lazio and Celtic before we signed him. Maybe they didn’t like what they saw but still, I wonder how he’s performing in Germany. I know his team aren’t doing that great but would be interesting to know if he’s returning to any sort of form 

[FroggattOwls]

Looked a cracking signing first few games, left boot pinging 60 yards passes. Perfect player for a left half of a three or left side C/H then never recovered from the derby match. Confidence shot completely. 

[TrickyTrev]

Absolutely garbage defender.

 

He reminds me of some of the rubbish we had to sign in the early 00’s, the key difference however being that we wasted over £3m on this guy.

 

If I never see him again in a Wednesday shirt it’ll be too soon.

Edited May 14, 2020 by TrickyTrev

[FroggattOwls]

1 hour ago, FroggattOwls said:

Looked a cracking signing first few games, left boot pinging 60 yards passes. Perfect player for a left half of a three or left side C/H then never recovered from the derby match. Confidence shot completely. 

 

1 hour ago, TrickyTrev said:

Absolutely garbage defender.

 

He reminds me of some of the rubbish we had to sign in the early 00’s, the key difference however being that we wasted over £3m on this guy.

 

If I never see him again in a Wednesday shirt it’ll be too soon.

 

And that my friends is the internet. 

[Dutch McLovin]

1 hour ago, Owls-Fan said:

I remember media reports said he’d been linked to Lazio and Celtic before we signed him. Maybe they didn’t like what they saw but still, I wonder how he’s performing in Germany. I know his team aren’t doing that great but would be interesting to know if he’s returning to any sort of form 

I read a article (I think from Dom Howson might be mistaken) where he had got a couple of local journo's from Germany to give us an update on how our lads were doing out there, then he put his own spin on it.

 

From the original journo, looks like van Aken's team are struggling and have been all year. Don't score enough concede too many don't have much of a style. Seems that there back 5 is often changed through poor performance including the goalkeeper.... however van Aken is the mainstay as he is the only one performing. Yes it doesn't say much and im not aware of the standard of the league being brilliant but it looks like he is doing as much as he can do where he is playing.

 

As I have said in previous posts I think he lacks the natural defending skills to play in a back two or back three..... would be better off sat in front of a back four or sat behind it in a sweeper role. Would have been much more use to us this year if he would have played the mins Pelupessy has !

[trev]

1 hour ago, beloved_aunt said:

 

I always thought his ideal position would be spare man in a back three. Why I'm surprised Jos never played him there when he gave people like Jones a go in that position.

Yeah that could work too but I still think he would get targeted by the strong strikers and be a weak link.

[mcmigo]

There is no hope of him playing again for us. Loan out again for the season and release at end of contract.

[sweetsheri]

2 hours ago, bladeshater said:

Hope not it's ceased to exist 3 years ago

Explains a lot!

[Burnsie]

How has he got on at his loan club?

[DJMortimer]

 

4 hours ago, StudentOwl said:

Dutch media had it at €4m all in... that was a fee that included appearance bonuses and a bonus upon winning promotion. €4m at the time was ~£3.2m. So £3.2m all in including promotion bonus and appearance bonus. Quite how those fees broke down and what % they made up the £3.2m is guesswork, but you could make a reasonable case that that means the up-front fee was anywhere from £2m to £3m. So, guesstimate of c.£2.5m... relatively speaking it's nowhere near £4m.

 

With Sasso not wanting to extend his stay as an occasional player and Semedo being released, at the end of that season we had two senior centre backs still at the club (Lees and Loovens) and one of those was injured. During pre-season we were forced to use Pudil, Hutchinson and youngsters in the starting line-up. Even a couple of games into the season and with the transfer window closure approaching that was still the situation. Just before the deadline we brought in van Aken and Venancio on loan.

 

Given this rather desperate state of affairs, and the hiding of Chansiri's wallet after the arrival of Jordan Rhodes (as the financial idiocy must have finally started to be considered in the boardroom), I think it's fair to conclude that the ridiculous delay was due to us trying to find someone who had a chance of being decent but also had the benefit of being cheap. So I never bought into the £4m myth, and I suspect it could well be considerably cheaper than even your estimate. Because if we had circa £2.5m to spend (plus whatever Venancio was costing) then I fail to see why something wouldn't have been sorted out perhaps even several weeks earlier. It all smacks of going round the charity shops looking for designer labels.

 

 

[theowlsman]

Van Aken, 50% off. Sports Direct.

[room0035]

I would like to know who the other 199 defenders were we looked before deciding on an unknown bloke from Holland for a reported €4m - which seem more than a little steep.

 

When you look at the free agent signing of Borner in comparison it shows just how useless recruitment was before the guy Bruce bought in last January.

[Musn't Grumble]

At one stage, I would have put Thorniley ahead of Van Aken.

 

I know we lost 3-0 at Chelsea in the FA Cup match ("VAR Strikes Again!") but Thorniley looked pretty solid against World class opposition and he had Higuain in his pocket for the 80-odd minutes the latter was on the field. Thorniley looked decent in most of the matches so, like Van Aken's move to Osnabruck, you can't blame the lad for taking up the offer of first team football at Blackpool.