Jetro Willems back in premier league after six years: ‘Contributing quality and experience’

What will Jetro Willems bring to Groningen? With experience at the European Championship with Orange, matches in the Champions League, Bundesliga and Premier League, relegation soccer now awaits in the Premier League.

Although: “What I’m saying, it’s still twelve games…. So then I’m already saying enough, right?”

And precisely his experience can then come in handy to help Groningen quickly move up a few places again, toward the safe middle ground. “The facilities are good. The opportunities are top. It is a nice team, there is a lot of stretch in it,” notes Willems.

At the spot where he made his last minutes in the premier league as a PSV player on May 7, 2017, he will make his return to the Dutch fields on Saturday afternoon as a Groninger. “He can only play a small part against Excelsior, so we let him fill in for the last part,” coach Dennis van der Ree reveals. “At most half an hour…”

Indeed, Willems has not played for eight months, his contract with Greuther Fürth was dissolved. He’s only 28 years old, but the reason he’s settling down in Groningen is so he can get some playing time himself. And so it cuts both ways, because experience is invaluable, according to him.

“I can contribute quality and especially experience. That is something that is needed everywhere,” he knows. “Views of the game, the minutes I’ve made abroad, what I’ve seen I want to bring that to the field. Especially what I did abroad.”

“From day one he was here, he was engaged with guys,” Van der Ree observed during Willems’ trial period. “It’s a guy we can use well.”