After signing three players who made their name in the Netherlands over the summer – Sam Lammers, Danilo and Cyriel Dessers all arriving – it should perhaps come as no surprise that one of the managers high on Rangers post-Mick Beale radar has also built up quite the reputation in the Eredivisie.
Pascal Jansen certainly had big shoes to fill when stepping up at AZ Alkmaar following the departure of Arne Slot to Feyenoord. And after a sluggish, inconsistent start to life in the dugout, the fact that AZ appear to be emerging as the biggest challengers to Slot’s reigning champions – just two points off the top with six wins out of seven games – is testament not only to Jansen’s resilience, proving his critics wrong and establishing himself as one of the top coaches in the country, but also his ability to construct a side greater than the sum of it’s parts.
AZ are not merely overachievers these days. They are an established, top Eredivisie side, and only getting better despite a number of high-profile departures.
Rangers eye AZ Alkmaar boss Pascal Jansen
AZ, always exciting and easy-on-the-eye with their fluid 4-3-3 system, finished fourth last season while reaching the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League. Jansen’s up-and-at-em approach and his penchant for player development helped secure Tijjani Reijnders a big-money move to AC Milan, with Jesper Karlson and Pantelis Hatzidiakos following the Nicolas Raskin-esque playmaker to Serie A.
Vangelis Pavlidis, meanwhile, has been transformed from a promising-if-inconsistent centre-forward into one of the finest number nines in the country. Pavlidis has nine goals in just seven Eredivisie appearances this term.
Jansen’s ability to get the best out of the forwards at his disposal, then, bodes particularly well for Danilo, Abdallah Sima, Rabbi Matondo and the much-maligned Cyriel Dessers. Do not be surprised, meanwhile, if the £3 million Sam Lammers appears a man immediately reborn should Rangers choose the London-born 50-year-old as Beale’s successor; The Sun’s Alan Nixon reporting that the Glasgow giants ‘will speak to Jansen’ before making their decision.
Lammers, after all, scored 30 goals in 63 games under Jansen during their time together in PSV’s reserve team. And the admiration between player and coach is very much mutual.
Pascal Jansen is a big Sam Lammers fan
“Sam has enormous potential” Jansen said of Lammers back in 2016, via Voetbal International and Voetbal Zone. “If you have one of the most talented strikers in an age category, you are not going to get rid of him.”
It is Jansen’s follow-up comments, however, which will feel particularly prescient to those who have watched Lammers stumble through the first few months of his Rangers career, the odd flicker of promise but just one goal in 14 games thus far.
“(Lammers) sometimes still thinks too much as a midfielder. When he gets into a scoring position, he sometimes lacks that urge to actually score,” Jansen adds, that point as prophetic now as it was six years ago.
“He’s more than (a midfielder). He also has the ability to score. He had and has some phlegmatic traits and these did not always help him. And yet he is a real football animal. You can wake him up in the middle of the night to train.”
