Van Basten: "We play worse every week"

Monday 9 February 2009

Ajax coach Marco van Basten had noticed after the 4-1 defeat at the hands of Vitesse Arnhem that his team has started playing worse every week.

"Against FC Groningen, Heerenveen and Heracles I saw a match, but today it was all over after 45 minutes. That hurts."

Van Basten spoke of a collective failure, but didn't say what he himself had done wrong.

"Whether I can get things right again?" he paraphrased a question.

"I may hope so. If not we have a real problem. Whether I have considered quitting? It has crossed my mind a few times, yes. But I think that's only natural in situations such as these."

Van Basten called conceding the ball up front too much as the main reason for the defeat against Vitesse.

"As a forward you should know when not to lose the ball. Our forwards created a lot of our defensive problems. After the break we played with some extra forwards and one might expect that we create some chances then. But it didn't happen. It's all very disappointing."

Van Basten thought his players were cramped and anxious.

On Friday some 20 or 30 aggressive fans had disturbed the training.

"But on Saturday I didn't feel that the players were affected by that. So I do not know whether these things have anything to do with each other. Our performance here today wasn't good. That much is clear."