Why Owen Wijndal is the perfect left-back signing for West Ham

It’s fair to say that Aaron Cresswell and Arthur Masuaku have been underperforming when called upon in the left-back role for West Ham. For years the Hammers have been crying out for a dynamic left-back who can defend and attack and Owen Wijndal could be just that.

Wijndal was born in Zaandam, North Holland to a Dutch father and Surinamese mother and joined the AZ Alkmaar academy at 10 having formerly played for local sides ZVV Zaandijk and HFC Haarlem. He was promoted to the AZ reserves for the 2016-17 season and in February 2017, Wijndal made his first-team debut against PSV Eindhoven in the Eredivisie after injuries to Ridgeciano Haps and Thomas Ouwejan.

This was a one-off, however, and Wijndal continued to play for the AZ reserves for the remainder of the 2016/17 season in the 3rd division, helping them win the title. By June 2018, he was starting to feature more for the first team and he signed a 5-year contract. The 2019/20 season has been a breakthrough one for the 20-year-old and he is a regular starter.

AZ Alkmaar have been fantastic this season and were joint 1st with Ajax upon the cancellation of the league as a result of COVID-19. They have an incredibly young team and boast the likes of Calvin Stengs, Myron Boadu and Teun Koopmeiners as well as Wijndal.

Wijndal has seemingly gone under the radar however and is certainly one of AZ’s most exciting prospects. He is crucial to their side and it would be surprising if Premier League clubs weren’t battling for his signature this summer.

AZ manager, Arne Slot believes in a system which sees the champions playing out from the back. This heavily utilizes the left-side and Wijndal is pivotal during the build-up due to his composed nature.

He rarely loses the ball and spreads it across the backline with ease. Wijndal never looks to punt the ball upfield as we have seen many a time with Aaron Cresswell and he is excellent at finding alternative passes when his original route is blocked off.

He is comfortably the best left-back passer in the Eredivisie and indulges in the most passes as well as having the highest pass accuracy. He fits perfectly into the category of the modern-day full-back due to his astute defensive nature and presence in the final third, he has formed an excellent partnership with AZ’s left-winger Oussama Idrissi through overlapping runs and switching of positions.

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In recent times, Pep Guardiola has used inverted full-backs to cover the midfield region when midfielders move forward to help the attack. Arne Slot occasionally uses Wijndal in an inverted position, meaning that when the ball is on the other side of the field, Wijndal positions himself closer to the midfield region attracting the opposition midfielder or right-winger to him leaving Idrissi which more space out wide.

This is an interesting tactic that could be used at West Ham to give Felipe Anderson more space and time on the ball as on occasions this season the Brazilian is overcrowded by the opposition and therefore unable to manoeuvre the team up the field.

Defensively, Wijndal is also very good. He is great at one-on-ones and won 65.53% this season. He shows sheer aggression in the tackle but isn’t particularly reckless as he has enough time to not dive in due to his excellent positioning. He likes to wait for his opponent to make a mistake and capitalizes on even the smallest errors.

Dutch journalists have predicted that even the best Dutch teams will be required to sell their star players this summer due to the financial issues that COVID-19 has/will cause, therefore AZ may be looking to offload Wijndal.

The 20-year old won’t cost more than £20 million with TransferMarkt valuing the Dutchman at just £9 million. Therefore the East London outfit should be looking to start the bidding at about £11 million to stand a chance of getting their man as he is one of. the most talented young left-backs around.

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The signing of Wijndal would probably lead to the sale of either Masuaku or Cresswell so the Hammers could make some of the money back through that and he’d certainly be an improvement in the long-term and short-term on both of the current West Ham left-backs.