Bought from Ajax for £24.3m by Everton, Davy Klaassen’s stay at Goodison Park only lasted a year, as he was sold on to Werder Bremen in July for exactly half price.
During that time, the Dutch midfielder only made seven league appearances for the Toffees, four of which came in the first six fixtures on the calendar.
Once Ronald Koeman was dismissed in October, the 25-year-old didn’t reappear on a Premier League team sheet until March, when he came on for 6 minutes in a 2-0 win against Brighton.
Not featuring in either of Sam Allardyce’s or Marco Silva’s plans, the midfielder was swiftly sold to the Bundesliga outfit, who have already benefitted from his ability, as he’s racked up two assists in four games.
However, for Rafael Van der Vaart, who knows the Premier League well from his time at Tottenham, Klaassen’s struggles didn’t come as a surprise.
In fact, he expected them, since the expectations were so high after his 44 goals in 126 games for Ajax.
He told Deichstube: “In the Eredivisie, he was able to reach this tally, but in England that didn’t happen, which I had feared. He’s just not that type of player, not as a goal threat”.
For him, Klaassen is more of a box-to-box midfielder, who ‘does every team good’, and is ‘enormously effective in the middle of the pitch’, as he’ll ‘hardly play bad passes’.
Perhaps the former Ajax star just wasn’t given enough chances to adapt to the Premier League.
Either way, that’s in the past now, and he seems to be enjoying himself in Bremen.
