Peter Bosz is again in the picture at Ajax, Wilfred Genee reported on Monday Veronica Offside. According to the presenter, the club management is looking for a permanent successor to John Heitinga, who may stay on as assistant coach in that case. The new technical director Sven Mislintat recently said that Heitinga was in pole position for the position of head coach next season, but the cards now seem to be different in Amsterdam.
“Now Peter Bosz seems to be back in the picture, I understand. And that he (Heitinga, ed.) Could possibly become the assistant again,” Genee explains in the football talk show on Monday evening. “Could you do that if you were allowed to smell it yourself for a while?”, the presenter asks the analysts. “That’s difficult, I don’t know how he thinks,” replies Wesley Sneijder. “I wouldn’t have done it. But John feels good there, so you can also have something like: ‘I’m going to take a step back’. It wouldn’t be crazy, I would understand it too.”
Sneijder would not accept such a construction if he were in Heitinga’s shoes. “It is a relegation after all. But they can also just say: ‘Go back to Jong Ajax’.” The former midfielder sees even more disadvantages for Heitinga, should he become an assistant again. “Soon the new trainer will be fired after six months and then he will move on again and he will be an interim trainer again. Then it can also be finished very quickly. With the material he now had, he could do very little wrong.”
“He has lost all crucial duels and has not finished second. Did not continue in Europe and did not win the cup. But with the material that was thrown into his lap.” In Sneijder’s view, Heitinga is far too little supported by the Ajax leadership. “I keep saying that, because we shouldn’t all lose Heitinga. Without support from Ajax, without any support. They just dropped that boy.”
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Heitinga discussed his possible stay on as head coach after the 3-1 defeat against FC Twente on Sunday. “I think there will be clarity in the coming week. I don’t know how things will continue now, and I’ve said that before. For the people who know me: if I could share information, I would. I can’t tell you more at the moment than I tell you and I assume that there will be clarity in the coming week,” it sounded in conversation with Pascal Kamperman of ESPN.