Liverpool will miss Holland’s ‘most important’ Wijnaldum – De Jong
Nigel De Jong has described ex-Liverpool man Georginio Wijnaldum as one of the Netherlands’ “most important players” at this summer’s European Championships.
The 30-year-old joined Liverpool in 2016 from Newcastle United. He made the move to Anfield for around £25m.
WIjnaldum has been a key player for Liverpool over the past few years. He featured 237 times for them across all competitions.
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In this time, he won the Premier League and the Champions League. His contract expired at the end of the season and he has joined PSG.
Wijnaldum is part of the Netherlands’ 26-man squad for Euro 2020. He is among the top scorers in the tournament as he netted three times during the group stages.
The Netherlands face the Czech Republic in the last 16 of Euro 2020 on Sunday.
As cited by The Mirror, De Jong told ITV Sport ahead of the game that Wijnaldum is vital for the Netherlands:
“If you look at the position he plays for Holland, he plays a more advanced role and he has the opportunity to score more goals.
“That was the difference between how he played for Liverpool and when he played for Holland. He is one of the most important players for Holland and even has more goals than [Marco] Van Basten.”
De Jong went onto suggest that the “belief is back” that the Netherlands can win Euro 2020:
“The belief is back, the nation is fully behind the team.
“They played very well during the group stages and came out comfortably. Everybody is in good spirits and they are now backing the manager after he has overcome a tough period since Koeman left.”
Gary Neville disagreed though as he called De Jong out for “getting too excited”:
“I like them, but without Van Dijk they haven’t got a world star.
“They weren’t impressive in their first game, but as soon as De Ligt returned they were much better defensively. I still do not think that they will go the full way, I think Nigel is getting too excited but they don’t have the quality all over the pitch like the other sides.”
