Netherlands have gone through a very bad spell in the last couple of years and this was largely demonstrated by the nation’s inability to qualify for the Euro 2016 despite being one of the top in the world.

Netherlands remain one of the best ranked teams, but they have been suffering from highly inconsistent form even from the World Cup 2014. The appointment of Guus Hiddink – for a second spell in charge of the team – was expected to improve matters but the team has regressed even more. The former Chelsea boss was unable to prevent Netherlands from failing to qualify for Euro 2016 and this led to the appointment of Danny Blind recently.

Bland has a major task to revamp the team with fresh blood since the likes of Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben are unlikely to be available by the time the next World Cup kicks off. A more immediate concern will be to improve the form of the team. The manager has set his sights upon using a defensive tactics primarily in order to avoid defeat. Since there is no Euro 2016 to compete, Netherlands will only be taking part in friendly matches for almost a year. The first among those friendlies will be against Wales.

“I get the feeling that we need some more defensive stability. We could use the 5-3-2 formation that we used at the World Cup, but playing with two holding midfielders is an option as well. The main thing is that we need a strong defensive core. I cannot say yet how we will play, though.We are not able to dominate our opponents at this stage. We will be using the same formation against Wales and Germany,” said Blind. The team has not kept a clean sheet since the 2-0 win over minnows Latvia.