According to Arne Slot, Mats Wieffer is now back to his old self. The Feyenoord midfielder has had to deal with a lot of criticism in recent weeks, and was also critical of himself, but seems to have slowly regained his old form. His trainer also sees this, Slot made clear after the Eredivisie match between Feyenoord and SC Heerenveen (6-1).
When asked by reporter Hans Kraay junior whether Wieffer is back to his old self, Slot answers: “Yes. I also had him with me this week to say that I thought he did not play as badly in the first half against Ireland as the outside world would have you believe. We have all seen that the Dutch team was not the best half, but his performance was not that bad.”
Wieffer was in the starting line-up in the European Championship qualifying match against Ireland last weekend, and was replaced by Tijjani Reijnders at half-time when the score was 1-1. The Dutch played better in the second half and won 1-2 thanks to a goal by Wout Weghorst. According to Slot, after such a match, many people quickly point negatively to players who played in the first half and did not play in the second half.
So Wieffer was one of them. “I tried to indicate that I did not agree with those people,” said Slot. “He played excellent games with us before that and again today.” Due to the very large victory over Feyenoord, where Wieffer was on the field for the entire game, the Rotterdam team is currently at the top of the Eredivisie with eleven points from five games.