What do you think of Depay? Will he be a starter in the WC?
I posted this in another thread where someone asked about Depay, Blind and other Dutch players. Don't think Depay will be a starter unless Lens gets injured, but he might be the first choice substitution.
,,Depay is pretty special, but I find it very hard to rate wingers. Because Messi started out on the wing, compared to Messi at 19 years old, Depay is mediocre, same goes if you compare him with Ronaldo. Also Adnan and Sterling are even younger than Depay and they've already shown it on the highest level now, so I would rate them higher. But I saw a young Robben at PSV, Depay has roughly the same impact although he is a different player. And Robben is one of the best in the world now, so like I said rating wingers is tricky, I don't think we need Depay just yet. He has a great mentality though, looks like trouble with his tattoos, but that's just looks. He wants to be like Ronaldo, he hired a nutritionist for himself at age 18, is extremely well trained, just like a young Ronaldo.
Daley Blind is another story. He reminds me off Giovanni van Bronckhorst a bit. Excellent on the ball, nothing fancy, but great 'functional technique' as we call it, first touch always good, good vision and passing. Is a central midfielder, but can play left back very well on low levels. Lacks speed for absolute top club as a left back, I think Giovanni was a little bit more intelligent and perhaps faster too. Blind also lacks quality as a midfielder imho, not the potential Strootman has, think Blind will be a Scott Parker/Gareth Barry level midfielder in his prime, but midfield is Blinds best position and combined with the fact he can play left back, might be an interesting 'ideal multifunctional squad player' for a team like Schalke or Everton in the future.
Personally in the 20-24 years of age category I really rate Bruno Martins Indi and Darryl Janmaat, I don't think they're anywhere near top of the premier league levels, but they could be very good second/third choice defenders for United and perhaps develop, as they're available on the cheap. And they would accept being benched without any problems, so they're interesting squad players the way I see it.
Strootman would be an obvious choice if he recovers well from his ACL, but I don't know if Roma would let him go for less than 35 million, he's only played 8 months for them. You don't know how his recovery is going to go, and for a first choice central midfielder in that price category, we have to get it absolutely right this time, so Strootman might be too much of a gamble, but he would've been excellent for us this season instead of Fellaini and would've saved us 10 million pounds.
In the 17-20 years of age category Tonny Vilhena and Jean-Paul Boëtius and Terrence Kongolo are the three dutch youngsters I rate the most at the moment, all three have the potential to be very good players. I especially like Tonny Vilhena, good alround cm who can potentially can be world class if he keeps developing, sort of a more technical version of Strootman. His manager is Mino Raiola, who tends to have an eye for special talents, we know him from the Pogba saga.
Ricardo Zivkovic and Ricardo Kishna (he's also Mino Raiola player) also look very, very special, but the first one is 17 years and just signed for Ajax, has only played a couple of matches. Same goes for Kishna, who is 19 and broke into Ajax first team a couple of months ago. Tonny, Boëtius and Kongolo have played a little bit more, so it's easier to judge them."
Suggesting Clasie, Veltman and Castaignos is laughable imho.