It did not come very easily to Ajax this afternoon, but Brian Brobbey is still quite satisfied with what he and his teammates showed against NEC this afternoon. The striker also has a lot of confidence in the rest of the season, in which he sees Ajax ‘just’ finishing at the top of the Premier League.
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Under interim coach John van ‘t Schip, Ajax has been slowly moving towards this in recent weeks. The club was last in October, but since Van ‘t Schip took over from dismissed coach Maurice Steijn, Ajax has won almost everything in the Premier League. Something that only happened once in the months before.
“Fought and fought”
But Ajax is not yet completely back to normal, which means that a loss of points was still in the air this afternoon until the final phase. “But that is important for the character,” says Van ‘t Schip. “It is a young group and they have fought and battled with each other. Then it is nice if you can take home the three points.”
It doesn’t matter much to striker Brobbey that Ajax will not receive a beauty prize for this match. “It doesn’t matter how we win, as long as we win. Did I think it was an ugly match? No, at times we played good football.”
Top 5 or top 3?
For the time being, Van ‘t Schip’s goal is still to finish in the top five. “At the moment the gap with the first four is still quite big, but we want to increase the pressure. We want to ensure that we grow as a team. Maybe we can move up one or two more places. But for now we are focusing on the fifth place.”
Brian Brobbey dares to tighten that goal: “Where will this end? I hope in the top 3. And we will do everything we can to achieve that.”