Feyenoord continued with a convincing 5-1 victory at RKC Waalwijk a next step towards the sixteenth national title. Nevertheless, trainer Arne Slot was not completely satisfied with his team afterwards.
Slot was especially disappointed at the start of the first half and second half, in which he did not see the right energy in his players. ,,They heard at halftime that I was not satisfied with the first fifteen to twenty minutes, in which we did not have the right energy and RKC had some chances. I also didn’t like the first fifteen minutes after the break. Only after the 4-0 did it become a bit as I would like to see it”, said Slot, who saw that his striker Santiago Giménez (21) was involved in four goals.
“It is certainly the case that we are increasingly able to take advantage of our opportunities and that is also due to him. Unfortunately, that didn’t work against Ajax last Wednesday, but Santiago was also dangerous a few times then. It is already special that he plays here. I don’t think many people know that you can earn much better in Mexico than here in the Netherlands. It cannot be ruled out that great clubs will come for him in the summer and then it is up to him to see what is the best continuation in his career for him, but he is still young.
Slot decided tonight during the warm-up to put Alireza Jahanbakhsh on the bench after all, after the right winger from Iran again indicated in the warm-up that he did not feel completely fit. Slot expects to have him again on Thursday in the home game against AS Roma. “Marino Pusic does the analysis of the opponents and has therefore been working with AS Roma for some time. I will be working on that from tomorrow”, said Slot, who lost 1-0 to AS Roma in the Conference League final last year and therefore ended a good first year in Rotterdam without a prize.
,,Yes, I may have some feelings of revenge after that unpleasant evening in Tirana and the boys who were there last year as well. But it would be strange if you needed extra motivation for a quarter-final in the Europa League. Now we also have almost a completely new team and it is about two duels, so that makes the situation completely different.”
Feyenoord saw no less than eight important players leave last summer with Marcos Senesi, Tyrell Malacia, Fredrik Aursnes, Jens Toornstra, Guus Til, Bryan Linssen, Cyriel Dessers and Reiss Nelson. In total there were even 26 departures last summer, with 26 new players in the selection.
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