Huntelaar looking for certainties

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Ajax will be looking for their first away win when they face Heracles in Almelo on Wednesday.

It would of course be helpful when Klaas-Jan Huntelaar finally finds back to his goal scoring form and nets a few.

Huntelaar is no longer the designated penalty taker since he has missed two recently and so far he has scored only three in seven games.

But the game in Almelo might provide the cure, as Heracles is one of his favorites opponents.

Of the 132 goals Huntelaar has scored as a professional (180 games) he scored 9 against Heracles.

But of late his effectiveness in front of goal is letting him down and that has left him looking for certainties.

But the doubt is not only caused by squandering chances.

A lot has been going on around the 25-year-old in the past two months.

The captain of Ajax has been silenced by the KNVB, because that is how it feels when you enter the field with a conditional suspension looming overhead.

A suspension he received after criticizing a referee.

He thought that as a captain he could make some well funded remarks about the level of the arbitration, but the Dutch FA thought differently.

"I don't think that what I said showed a lack of respect. You should be allowed to speak your mind no?" Huntelaar says.

Just to be safe he doesn't miss any chance to state how "fantastic" referees are these days.

The captain's armband also does not guarantee him anything within the team, as was shown when Van Basten took him off against Roda.

Van Basten sacrificed a player that he wouldn't let go for 40 million a week before and did so without considering how the player would feel about that.

Van Basten and Huntelaar of course know each other from their time with the national team, but it wasn't always a warm relationship.

In the absence of Van Nistelrooy Van Basten kept switching between Dirk Kuyt and Huntelaar and Van Basten didn't take Huntelaar along to World Cup in Germany.

Now that they are working together at Ajax Van Basten has publicly defended Huntelaar a few times, but that takes nothing away from the fact that Ajax lack an offensive midfielder who can play close to Huntelaar.

Sulejmani seemed to combine well with Huntelaar but the little Serb will only resume training next week after six weeks of injury.

Without a number 10 behind him Huntelaar tends to wander around the pitch too much and as a consequence he is often too far away from goal.

Van Basten and Huntelaar discuss such matters regularly.

They share a love for the trade and have an eye for detail.

The first thing Van Basten did when he entered the stadium in Leipzig a day for Holland's kickoff against Ivory Coast the first thing he did was check where the sun was going to be during the match.

When Huntelaar won the toss before Feyenoord-Ajax he opted to let Feyenoord play in the direction of Feyenoord's most fanatical supporters in the second half.

It's a thing Van Basten would never have done.