Tottenham duo feature in 4-0 international win as one provides assist and the other dubbed 'strong'
Two Spurs stars were in World Cup qualifying action on Sunday, helping their national side pick up a big win.
Two Tottenham players were in international action for Netherlands on Sunday as they picked up another three points in their World Cup qualifying campaign. Ronald Koeman’s men are battling with Poland and Finland for a World Cup spot, and they headed into a date with the latter with a three point advantage over both.
A 4-0 win on Sunday puts them six points ahead of Finland with two games remaining, meaning they are now very likely to get at least a play-off spot, and they are three points ahead of Poland, keeping them in the driving seat for automatic qualification, though they head to Poland next for a defining qualifying clash in November.
Donyell Malen opened the scoring on Sunday night, while Virgil van Dijk and Memphis Depay added two more before half-ime. Spurs star Xavi Simons came off the bench in the 78th minute and provided an assist for Cody Gakpo to put the cherry on the win six minutes later.
Tottenham man van de Ven played 71 minutes at left-back, where he regularly starts for his nation. Football Oranje rated his performance as a 6.5/10, reasoning: “Strong but unremarkable performance again from the left back who was comfortable throughout.”
Koeman’s delight
Speaking after the game, Netherlands boss Koeman said: “From the very first moment, we did everything we could to win the match and score as many goals as possible. It was a shame that the fourth came a bit late," Koeman said.
"In the first half, you could see that if we got out of position too much, we were less dangerous. Justin [Kluivert] went all the way to the wing a few times, and Ryan [Gravenberch] initially moved from the six-man position all the way to right-back. You shouldn't do that.
"It's all about always pushing. If you look at Spain, they're working themselves to the limit to apply pressure. We'd like to have a moment where we're just walking. We can still improve in that area."
Netherlands are now done for this international break, next in action in November when they will conclude their qualifying campaign unless they end up in the play-off, in which case they will have more games in March. Van de Ven and Simons will return to Spurs safe and sound, with no obvious injury concerns picked up.
Your next Spurs read, Tottenham star hailed as 'MVP' for 9/10 international showing