Janssen can rise to PL test

With the help of Vincent Janssen’s former club and international coach Fred Grim, Adam Bate examines the Tottenham striker’s rise and why it would be foolish to write him off…

As soon as Tottenham announced the signing of Vincent Janssen, the debate reopened. Nine of the past 14 Eredivisie top scorers have played in the Premier League. The list includes Premier League golden boot winners Ruud van Nistelrooy and Luis Suarez, but also the likes of Mateja Kezman and Afonso Alves. It’s a broad church.

As a result, some scepticism is to be expected. But Janssen, who netted 21 goals in his final 17 league appearances for AZ, is used to having his capabilities questioned. It’s only three years ago that he was released by Feyenoord as a teenager with the Rotterdam club remaining bullish about their decision.

“As a young player there were a lot of talents who were above Vincent,” Feyenoord academy coach Damien Hertog told Algemeen Dagblad earlier this year. “It was just not clear that he would evolve. The assessment that we made at the time was right. Nobody could have expected he would improve so fast.”

Almost nobody. There was a club willing to give him an opportunity and a coach who believed in him. Almere City, then managed by former Ajax goalkeeper Fred Grim, elected to pick up Janssen following his Feyenoord release. Their nickname, perhaps appropriately, is de Zwarte Schapen – the Black Sheep.

The surroundings were not salubrious. The Yanmar Stadion holds little over 3,000 people and was around two-thirds full for Janssen’s biggest game for Almere, a play-off tie at home to De Graafschap in which he naturally scored. But it was here that Janssen first flourished. “It was a perfect match,” Grim tells Sky Sports. “He worked hard and scored a lot of goals.”

Feyenoord had measured everything. …

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