Vitesse analysis with European football expert Andy Brassell

European football expert Andy Brassell is back with his analysis of Vitesse Arnhem ahead of our UEFA Europa Conference League group match in the Netherlands this evening (5.45pm UK).

Andy is a regular contributor to The Guardian, talkSPORT and co-host of the Football Ramble podcast. You can also find him on BT Sport and the BBC and the official Champions League radio show. @andybrassell

Form in Europe

Vitesse beat Anderlecht to reach the group stage. Anderlecht are on the way back under Vincent Kompany, they are getting there and much better than they were last season, so for Vitesse to knock them out was a decent result. Also, in the last group match against Stade Rennais, they kind of blew it, to be honest. They were really good in that game, deserved to win, missed a lot of chances and conceded the winner late on, even though Rennes were down to 10 men. That result was tough on Vitesse, they felt they played well and were organised until the back end of the game, where it all fell apart for them. They are ambitious and the fact they’ve sold out this game, tickets went on sale in stages and were snapped up like that, shows their fans are very excited. It’s a big thing, and suggests the club is going somewhere.

Key players

Vitesse go into this in form, they won their derby against NEC Nijmegen at the weekend, where people may have seen the stand collapsed at the end of the game, dreadful scenes, thankfully no-one was hurt. They’ve come together a little more in the last few weeks since losing 4-1 at Twente (19 September). They play with three at the back, something that’s coming into Dutch football a little more... Ajax are going that way as well, and the guy who knits it all together for Vitesse is Riechedly Bazoer. He’s a player who probably should have had a bigger career than he has to this point, came through the Ajax Academy, played for Porto and Wolfsburg, it just didn’t come off for him at those teams, but he’s still only 25 and I guess he’s building himself up to go to the next level again. He’s almost like a playmaker at the back, makes the back three work, and super-important for them. At the front end, I like Lois Openda, who scored a couple of goals when they beat Feyenoord a couple of weeks back. He’s quite a dribbly forward. It’s not physical football, on the whole. The players who get stuck in are in the back half of the pitch. Openda is still developing, he’s 21, and a player who offers something a little different. If they want to be brave, want to be ambitious, he’s one of the players they will look to.