Vitesse wins 6-2, Chelsea's Wallace scores

Vitesse continues to climb back up the Eredivisie table after a slow start to the season, and beat Dordrecht 6-2 over the weekend. The Arnhem club is now riding a four-match unbeaten streak, and the run of good form couldn't have come at a better time.

Vitesse now sits in 13th place and should continue to move up the table. The club had a very tough schedule to start the season, facing the top four Eredivisie clubs in its first six matches, and managing only a single point.

Vitesse was in control from start to finish, and was up 2-0 inside of twenty minutes, thanks to goals from Abiola Dauda (his fourth in the last three Eredivisie matches) and Denys Oliynyk.

Valeri Qazaishvili scored a hat trick in the span of thirty-five minutes during the second half, and Wallace and Bertrand Traore combined for a Chelsea-infused goal as well.

We've mentioned this previously, and the communication and link-up play between Wallace and Traore on the right side has been fantastic. You can see the goal for yourself in the highlight video below (starting around 1:28), and Traore drew in the defender, and as Wallace instinctively overlapped, Traore laid the ball off to Wallace, who displayed some excellent finishing from a tough angle.

That was Wallace's first career goal at Vitesse, and second career goal at the professional club level, having scored once before for Fluminense.

Josh McEachran remained on the bench, despite regular starters Davy Propper and Zakaria Labyad sitting out. McEachran has played a decent 298 minutes this season, but only 28 have been in the Eredivisie. The rest came against an amateur third-division side in a domestic cup match and for the Vitesse U21's.

Right now, there's simply no room for him in the starting eleven. As resident youth expert @chelseayouth intimated, a case could be made to replace McEachran with Kelvin Leerdam, as Leerdam's considerable strengths at his natural position as an offensive-minded right back don't translate very well to defensive midfield.

However, it's extremely unlikely that Peter Bosz would leave Leerdam out of his starting eleven. If Leerdam could only play right back, Wallace would need to learn another position if he ever wanted to see the pitch again. This is not a knock on Wallace, who has been very solid for Vitesse thus far, but rather an assertion of how much Peter Bosz likes Kelvin Leerdam (and for good reason, as he's the club's leading returning goal-scorer, with eight goals, all coming from right back last season).

McEachran provides little more than depth at the moment and will need to show something extraordinary if he wants Bosz to consider him for significant first team minutes.

Match highlights

Davy Propper named to Dutch provisional squad for Euro qualifiers

Guus Hiddink has selected Vitesse midfielder and Arnhem native Davy Propper to the thirty-player list he's considering for the Euro qualifiers against Kazakhstan and Iceland on 10 and 13 October. The 23-year-old previously competed for the Dutch U19's and U21's, and his first senior call-up came in November of last year, as an injury replacement for Robin van Persie. He was with the squad for friendlies against Colombia or Japan, but didn't feature in either match.

Propper himself was a bit surprised to be named to the list, recognising that he's definitely not one of the automatic selections, but he has really shined since being asked to replace his good friend Marco van Ginkel in central midfield after he left for Chelsea. Propper feels its an honour to even be considered, but is going "full on" in his attempt to earn a spot on the 23-man squad.

Hiddink will name his final squad by Saturday, and all of us at WAGNH wish Propper the best of luck as he attempts to earn his first senior international cap.

Up next

Vitesse has a rare match under the Friday night lights this week against ADO Den Haag (18:00 BST, 13:00 EST). Den Haag, some will remember, is where Kenneth Omeruo spent eighteen months before moving to Middlesbrough in what will likely be his final loan stop before graduating to the Chelsea first team.