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In an otherwise cloudy weekend, there is one silver black and yellow lining - Vitesse absolutely steamrolled PSV on Saturday, with two goals and five assists coming from the Chelsea lads.
Here's the latest in all things Vitesse Arnhem as it relates to Chelsea.
Vitesse hammers PSV 6-2, remains alone at the top
After beating PSV in Eindhoven this weekend, Vitesse remains two points clear at the top of the table.
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@chelseayouth, an expert on all things, yep, you guessed it, Chelsea youth, has graciously allowed us to reproduce the Vitesse portions of his always-excellent weekly loan report here on WAGNH. His report on the how our Chelsea lads did against PSV is as follows -
Lucas Piazon, Patrick van Aanholt and Christian Atsu all took their regular places in the starting line-up; Atsu in the ten role behind forward Mike Havenaar, with the other two lining up alongside each other on the left side, and between them they were integral in destroying a young PSV side which was missing regular centre-back and former Chelsea player Jeffrey Bruma through suspension.
Piazon opened the scoring with a clinical finish after the ball broke loose in the box from a long throw, and whilst the hosts levelled just before half time, it was Vitesse who ran riot in the second half. Atsu laid on the second for Havenaar with a fierce cross from the left before Piazon produced a magical through ball for Kelvin Leerdam to add a third.
Karim Rekik reduced arrears late on but then Van Aanholt took over to secure the points. His quick free kick released Davy Propper for 4-2, and he then got in on the goalscoring act himself after playing a series of passes back and forth with Piazon before nutmegging Jeroen Zoet from a tight angle. He capped things off with another sharp and incisive ball in for Propper to round out a statement victory and keep Peter Bosz’s side atop the Eredivisie.
Gael Kakuta came off the bench for a ten minute cameo whilst Sam Hutchinson remained there unused. Cristian Cuevas, as per usual, was not involved, and his spell at the club is mainly about adapting to Europe.
Along with the loan reports provided by our own Stephen Schmidt, these are far and away the most comprehensive Chelsea loan reports on the planet, and I urge anyone interested in our players on loan to make these reports part of your Chelsea reading.
I watched the match as well and while we're obviously going to focus on the Chelsea lads here at WAGNH, we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't strive to provide the full picture. As such, I have some brief notes on a few of the many non-Chelsea players that are responsible for the great football currently being played at Vitesse.
- The match was very close for the first 65 minutes, with PSV likely having the edge on scoring chances. Goalkeeper Piet Velthuizen made a number of excellent saves to keep the match close before the Arnhem onslaught.
- The other Vitesse fullback, Kelvin Leerdam, was a force on the right flank, and has six goals so far this season.
- Davy Pröpper is a product of Vitesse's youth system and has been receiving first-team minutes since he was eighteen years old. Now twenty-two, the central midfielder had an amazing game last weekend, scoring twice.
- We'll be sure to highlight the curiously named Japanese striker Mike Havenaar, reigning Georgian Footballer of the Year and Vitesse captain Guram Kashia, and others in the coming weeks and months.
Piazon, van Aanholt, and Atsu all smiles after the match
They sure do look like they're enjoying their time at Vitesse.
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Keeping up with Vitesse on social media
If you're looking for ways to follow Vitesse, Twitter is an excellent way to keep up with the Chelsea lads in Arnhem.
Lucas Piazon, Patrick van Aanholt, and Christian Atsu are all on Twitter, so be sure to give their accounts a look. Piazon also has an active Instragram account, as seen above.
If you understand Dutch, there's all sorts of great accounts to follow, including the official Vitesse feed @MijnVitesse and the official supporters' club feed @SVVitesse. For those of us who do not have the good fortune of being able to understand Dutch, however, there are still some excellent English-language feeds that will keep you up to date on all things Vitesse.
With regards to getting the best Vitesse news, there are four Twitter feeds that I highly recommend -
- @TheWSNetwork - Mark Will Stinson is a Chelsea fan in the Netherlands and provides a TON of great information not readily available to those of us who live outside of the Netherlands. His feed is filled with interesting quotes and insights from print-only articles and television interviews that would otherwise likely go unreported in the English language (for example, today he let the rest of us know that Sam Hutchinson scored for the Vitesse reserves this afternoon and yesterday, he provided a number of quotes on the Chelsea-Vitesse partnership from an interview Vitesse manager Peter Bosz gave on one of the Dutch football shows).
- @SchmidtXC - our own Steve Schmidt has been watching the Vitesse matches for years and he'll often live tweet the matches and provide some colourful insights into how the Chelsea lads are doing.
- @chelseayouth - aptly named, this is easily the most popular feed in the world for information, analysis, and breaking news about Chelsea's youngsters. A must-add for any Chelsea supporter.
- @PeterMcVitie - for those who have followed our Vitesse coverage over the past few months, you're likely already familiar with McVitie. For those of you who aren't, McVitie is an English-language Eredivisie journalist who has spoken directly with most of our lads at Vitesse and while he tweets about the Eredivisie as a whole, his feed is a must for anyone looking to learn more about the Dutch league.
Piazon by the numbers
Squawka's Tim Simon put together a very interesting piece trying to quantify how well Piazon has performed so far this season. If you enjoy performance analyses rooted in football statistics, you'll definitely enjoy Tim's work.
That's all for this week, and next week, we'll likely have a Q&A with a guest and perhaps a graphic detailing the relevant statistics to date for the Chelsea lads. If you can think of anything else that you'd like to see in the roundup, just drop us a line in the comments, and we'll do our best to include it.
