Lars Capiau
Latest update:
Mike Verweij is convinced that a coaching duo of Frank de Boer with Pepijn Lijnders as assistant coach would be the best for Ajax. That's what the journalist says The Telegraph in the podcast series Kick Off.
According to the men of the morning newspaper, John van 't Schip will not be in front of the group next season. But before March 15, when Alex Kroes starts as general manager at Ajax, no decision will be made about the position of trainer, the journalists suspect.
And so they expect that there will be a new trainer in the Amsterdam dugout next year. “What I would find very nice would be Frank de Boer with Pepijn Lijnders as assistant,” Verweij begins. “Lijnders has worked for Jürgen Klopp for years, so why couldn't that work?” Valentijn Driessen adds: “And there are close contacts between Marijn Beuker and Pepijn Lijnders.”
Klopp will leave Liverpool in the summer and Lijnders shows solidarity with the German coach. However, it is still very questionable whether Lijnders still wants to be employed as an assistant coach or whether he aspires to a position as head coach.
Presenter Pim Sedee asks Verweij whether that is a figment of his imagination or whether those sounds are circulating in Amsterdam. “That is not yet widely reported, but what you really feel is that a lot of people within Ajax think that Frank de Boer had to work under the most difficult circumstances.”
“His first purchase was Tobias Sana for €300,000, a gamble from (Marc, ed.) Overmars, that didn't work. But later trainers came and they were the first to purchase Dusan Tadic or Daley Blind. That is a difference.”
“Frank de Boer has made Ajax champions four times in a row and should have been champions five times in a row. But he did lay the financial foundation that has now been severely undermined.”
“De Boer did a lot of good and because of that Overmars was able to put together a team for Ten Hag that reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. Frank de Boer's name is not very strange either,” claims Verweij, who bases this on the fact that Louis van Gaal and Danny Blind are on the Supervisory Board.
“Among Ajax fans there is the idea that under De Boer it was only bad breakdown football with only balls wide and back, but certainly in the initial phase there were also periods in which football under De Boer was a lot of fun. He has really been worth gold to Ajax.”
Moreover, the gentlemen contribute Kick Off indicates that the question remains to what extent Ajax can invest in the summer transfer window. “They have thrown away a lot of money and not even half of it has come back,” says Driessen. “Then you have to look at your youth academy and Frank de Boer has shown that he can help players grow to the Ajax level.”
More news
More sports news
