Johan Derksen has every confidence in Alfred Schreuder. The 49-year-old coach suffered a shocking defeat with Ajax in the Champions League on Tuesday evening by losing 1-6 at home. According to Derksen, Schreuder is not the culprit and an accusing finger must be pointed at Gerry Hamstra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who in his eyes failed during the last transfer window.
“I was so annoyed by the media this morning (Wednesday morning, ed.)”, Derksen added. Today Inside. “Big heads: ‘Crisis at Ajax’. This has nothing to do with a crisis. You have three veterans (Dusan Tadic, Daley Blind and Remko Pasveer, ed.), who can no longer compete at this level. The other guys can still become champions in the Netherlands, but they have nothing to look for across the border. You can’t blame the players, because Napoli had a better player in every position.”
According to Derksen, Schreuder cannot be blamed either. “He has just prepared a good team. If you can blame someone, they are the successors of Marc Overmars,” said the television personality. “They have bought a lot of players, but the trainer does not think they are good enough to field them. Those are ‘normal’ players and Ajax already has a lot of them. But they have taken an abnormal player from the team who is now also excels at Manchester United”, Derksen refers to Antony.
Özcan Akyol, who also joined the talk show, thinks Schreuder is ‘very hyped’. “Especially at De Telegraaf. They hated Ten Hag. They continuously said that Schreuder did it as a field trainer. That’s the right man. But if you look at what he has accomplished over the past ten years… Only in Belgium has he well done.” Derksen does not agree completely with this. “He has never been to a club where he could prove himself as a club trainer. You first have to join a club like Ajax, Real Madrid or Barcelona. If you perform there, you are a great trainer.”
Derksen believes that Schreuder is ‘an excellent trainer’. “He is a civilized boy, he is always calm and is tactically very strong. But there was no honor to be gained against this Napoli. They were simply better. I think that Ajax can very well become champion of the Netherlands with this material. Ajax is always overly big, but it is a sign on the wall that eight players are being bought and they are not in it. Schreuder has been seeing them every day in training for a few months now. If they were good enough, he really had them prepared.”