Football
PA Sport 7y

Danny Blind has mixed feelings after Netherlands' defeat of Belarus

Netherlands coach Danny Blind had mixed feelings after his side's 4-1 win over Belarus in their World Cup qualifier on Friday.

Quincy Promes struck twice to put the Dutch in control in Rotterdam but it needed second-half efforts from Davy Klaassen and Vincent Janssen to secure victory after Aleksei Rios pulled one back.

Blind was pleased with the result -- his side's first victory of the Group A campaign -- but is demanding improvement ahead of France's visit to Amsterdam on Monday.

"I've seen good things, but also less good things," Blind said in De Telegraaf. "There are things we can and should do in the next two days.

"We started well in the first 30, 35 minutes but after that we played sloppy. You can not do that. Against big teams it could be fatal."

Also a concern for Blind was the loss of captain Wesley Sneijder through injury at half-time and he now seems unlikely to be fit to face France.

"The chance that he is there is minimal," Blind said.

One of Promes' goals took an uncharacteristic route to the net, travelling between the legs of two defenders before entering. He described how it happened afterward.

"I shot it deliberately through the legs of the first defender,'' Promes said, "but you have to be a bit lucky to get it through two more sets of legs.''

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