Football Season Guide

Vitesse will be eager to erase the memories of the disappointing previous season. The results have been inconsistent during last season, but their way of playing was definitely good in patches. Peter Bosz was the coach in the first half of the season and he claimed more good than bad results before the winter break, but he decided to leave Vitesse to become the coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv. His former assistant Rob Maas took over Bosz' job, but this was not a good move by Vitesse. The results went from bad to worse during the second half of the season and the Arnhem side even missed out on qualification for the Europa League play-offs ny finishing the season at the 9th place on the ranking table. It was already clear a few months ago that Rob Maas would not be Vitesse's coach in the season 2016/2017. Vitesse decided to sign Henk Fraser, who was the coach of ADO Den Haag in the last two seasons, as their new coach. Fraser already showed his ambitions by announcing that his ultimate goal with Vitesse will be to claim the 4th spot on the league table at the end of the season. Finishing in the top-8 will do for him as well, but this purpose shows his eagerness. The Arnhem side has not yet added a lot of players to the squad for the upcoming season, although Vitesse managed to take over Navarone Foor from their rivals of NEC Nijmegen. Danish goalkeeper Michael Tornes was transferred from Odense BK to Vitesse to replace Piet Velthuizen, who has left Arnhem to play for Hapoel Haifa in Israel. Vitesse surprised with a return of Ricky van Wolfswinkel, who grew up at the club in Arnhem and played in the first team from 2007 to 2009. His adventure outside the Netherlands was not very successful and now the striker is ready for a new beginning at the place where he started his career. During the previous seasons he played for Saint-Etienne and Real Betis on loan from Norwich City. Apart from Velthuizen, several more players have left Vitesse this summer. Dominic Solanke, Isaiah Brown and Danilo Pantic all returned to Chelsea, because their loan has ended, while Lewis Baker and Nathan de Souza will stay at Vitesse, because their loan from Chelsea has been extended. Winger Renato Ibarra has left Vitesse after five years to play for Club America in Mexico and talented defender Kevin Diks will make a new step in his career at Fiorentina in Italy. Vitesse will be hoping that their partnership with Chelsea will result in the addition of a few more players to their squad, on loan from the London side. They already have quite a good mix of young and talented players and experienced players, but still they will be aiming to add some more quality to their squad to be able to battle for the Europa League play-off places and maybe even more.