Arne Slot seems to opt for Yankuba Minteh as striker on Tuesday evening. The Feyenoord coach did not mention any names on Monday afternoon at the press conference prior to the Champions League match with Celtic, but seemed to indicate between the lines that Minteh is stationed between Luka Ivanusec and Igor Paixão.
Feyenoord’s ‘striker problem’ has been a topic of discussion for over a week now. It has been known for some time that Santiago Giménez has been suspended for the first two matches in the Champions League due to the red card he received last season when he visited AS Roma (4-1). Ayase Ueda was brought in this summer as a replacement for Danilo and seemed to be preparing for a starting place in the first two matches in the billion-dollar ball. However, the Japanese international injured his hamstring last week, which means that Slot is forced to make some adjustments in his forward line on Tuesday.
The Feyenoord coach has several options to solve the problem at the point of attack and seems to have made his choice. “I think everyone sitting here knows who will be in the team. Then there are three players up front, all three of whom can play as a striker, all three of whom can play on the left winger and two of the three can also play on the right winger,” said Slot. “We will train for it later and then we will make that choice.” However, the attackers will not be tied to one specific position against Celtic, the trainer says. “It is also not excluded that the striker position will be filled by different players in phases of the match.”
Slot is looking forward to Tuesday evening’s match and believes that Feyenoord must win every home match if it wants to continue in the group. “That depends on who is on the program on Tuesday. It is certainly not the case that I rate any of the three clubs differently. Besides us, Celtic is the only champion in the group and the other two (Atlético Madrid and Lazio, ed.) come from stronger competitions. I think you should always have a lot of respect for teams that have become champions, because I now know from my own experience how difficult it is to become champions.”
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