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Ajax's technical staff did not always feel supported by the club management last season, former assistant coach Michael Valkanis said in an extensive interview with Football InternationalThe 49-year-old Australian also reveals that former interim coach John van 't Schip would have liked to use the services of Dimitris Giannoulis (Norwich City)
Valkanis initially takes the blame. “We underperformed at times, that’s a fact. The matches in Europe also demanded a lot from us, otherwise we might have finished a bit higher. In every match after a European one, we dropped points because the players had trouble with the load.”
Still, Valkanis had hoped for more support from the club management, for example through reinforcements. “That's why we wanted to strengthen the selection, but the club management told us that little was possible.”
Valkanis thinks that new forces would certainly have contributed to better results. “If we had had more reinforcements, the results would probably have been better and we would have been able to offer more competition in Europe. We probably could have finished third.”
Van 't Schip's right-hand man names one of the players the coaching staff would have liked to see at Ajax. “For example, we wanted Dimitris Giannoulis from Norwich City, someone we thought could bring quality and experience. He was previously tipped by the Ajax management, in the time of Marc Overmars. Unfortunately, the management opted for something else, that happens sometimes,” says Valkanis.
Giannoulis (28) was selected by the Greek Sport24 linked to Ajax at the end of January. The left wing defender has been without a club since Monday, as his contract with Norwich City has expired. Transfer market estimates Giannoulis' current market value at 2.8 million euros. Norwich City reportedly targeted 5 million euros during the winter transfer window.
Giannoulis, Van 't Schip and Valkanis knew each other from a joint period with the Greek national team, between 2019 and 2021. The left-footer saw a transfer to Amsterdam, but ultimately finished the season at the second level of England.
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