Holland's Ruud van Nistelrooy (Allsport)

DUBLIN, Aug 16 (SW) – Speaking ahead of the friendly with the Republic or Ireland, Holland boss Marco Van Basten has played down the omission of goal-machine Ruud van Nistelrooy.

The former AC Mila star has dropped the new Real Madrid signing in favour of Ajax’s Klaas Jan Huntelaar, but insists that he will consider the forward for future call-ups.

“We made a change, bringing in Klaas for Ruud,” explained Van Basten.

“He is a player in whom we have a lot of confidence, but in football you never know what can happen in six months.

“It's not something definite, but at this moment we have chosen Klaas Jan Huntelaar.

“We are also very lucky in Holland in that we have a lot of good centre forwards, so we have to make decisions which are not easy.

“Klaas, Ruud, Dirk Kuyt, Roy Makaay, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink are all good centre forwards, yet we can't select them all.

“So it's hard to make changes, so when you make a decision like we did with van Nistelrooy, who is a very famous player, it attracts a lot of attention.

“Ruud wasn't amused or happy at not being selected, which is normal, but he accepted it and will do his very best to convince the Holland technical staff that we have made a wrong decision.

“That is also a good squad mentality, so we will see what happens in the coming few months.”