Willem van Hanegem singles out one Ajax player: 'If I were the manager, I’d be done with him'

Willem van Hanegem hasn’t exactly been spoilt this Eredivisie season, he writes in his column in the Algemeen Dagblad. Over the weekend that PSV clinched their 27th league title, Ajax and Feyenoord were once again a huge disappointment.

“Of course, PSV are the deserved champions of the Netherlands; everyone agrees on that,” he begins his opinion piece. Yet De Kromme does have a reservation about the league title.

“But the standard has continued to drop without a single rival coming anywhere near capitalising on it. With this team, complacency is always lurking. Telstar picked up six points, Volendam beat PSV. That simply shouldn’t happen to a team with such a strong squad.”

Furthermore, it was indeed a carefree season for PSV, who became the earliest champions ever in the Eredivisie. Naturally, that also had to do with the very poor standard of the competition.

That was evident again last weekend, when a shockingly weak Feyenoord could barely put up a fight against FC Volendam and Ajax were simply out of their depth against FC Twente.

"Ajax is now coming close to the label ‘worst Ajax ever’," says Van Hanegem. "If, as a foreigner, you happened to be in Amsterdam on Saturday and managed to get a ticket for Ajax v FC Twente, you’d think in the stands that you’d been had. That you were watching the amateur side or something."

The former top footballer takes aim at one Ajax player. "And then I see Wout Weghorst walking off the pitch after being substituted with a look that says ‘am I seriously being taken off?’ The man who is so highly praised by Ronald Koeman for his positive role in the Oranje squad, who after a season like this has the nerve to put himself above the rest."

"As a coach, I’d be done with him straight away. Weghorst can’t put the team first at Ajax or for the national side when it really matters. That just doesn’t make any sense, does it?" he says. Finally, Van Hanegem has a few words to say about Feyenoord’s performance.

"They’ve been messing about for months now. Of course, Allard Lindhout is an absolute klutz, Ayase Ueda should have been awarded a penalty, but if you look purely at the football, you can’t possibly hope that Feyenoord will come anywhere near PSV next season."

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