Erik ten Hag has been left with a satisfied feeling about Ajax’s resounding victory over Leeds United (4-0). Nevertheless, the trainer still sees sufficient room for improvement, especially in terms of fitness. In front of ‘s camera Ziggo Sports informs the coach that some players are not yet ready to ‘deal’ with play style and intensity.
“I enjoyed it at times today’, Ten Hag begins in conversation with Rafael van der Vaart and Wytse de Groot. “A lot of things went well, such as the team performance and the way of playing. We are just not there yet in terms of fitness. We still need to take a big step there. The execution of our playing style requires a high intensity. To bring this intelligence to the field you have to be super fit. But it is what it is, we have to deal with it. Those are the laws,” said the coach, who is then interrupted by Van der Vaart.
“Do you know how happy you are as a player when the preparation is finally over? Well, I was always very happy with it”, says the analyst on duty with a wink. Ten Hag responds to the comment and says that ‘this trainer always just keeps training hard’, whereupon Van der Vaart indicates that he is happy that he never had to train under him. Ten Hag: “Well, then you would have become really good!”
After the chat, the choice lord continues his story about the fitness of the player group, and suggests that the physical aspect will certainly become a factor in the choices he makes for the duel with PSV. “We will make choices based on that in particular, indeed. Against PSV we can only change five times, unlike tonight, when we could change the entire team. So why did players appear in both the afternoon game and the evening game? Well, those were only the fit guys, and that way they can work towards playing an entire match,” concludes ten Hag.