Amidst criticism of Netherlands head coach, Guus Hiddink , over the unexpected 2-0 defeat to Iceland on Monday October 13, 2014,the county’s national captain, Robin van Persie has defended under-fire coach, claiming that he is a fantastic boss.
The 67-year-old coach took over from Louis van Gaal this summer, and has lost three of his four matches in charge, including two Euro 2016 qualifiers.
The Manchester United striker has however begged to differ as he has rejected suggestions that the change of coach has had a negative effect on the team who came third at the World Cup earlier this year.
Speaking with NOS, Robin told the news that it is an unfair technical conduct to judge Hiddink with his early performance as history has proven him to be a fantastic coach.
“He’s a fantastic coach. We worked hard to get here in as good shape as possible. Iceland was looking for our mistakes.
“We made too many errors in possession and weren’t strong enough in duels.
He however admits that there is a huge task ahead for the team whose expectation is beyond what the team is delivering presently
“I still have hope. Nothing is decided yet, but there’s a lot of work to do. We’ll do anything. We don’t give up.”
He also lamented on hoe they were close to equalising but all effort to put the ball at the back of Iceland’s net was impossible
“This loss is very painful. We spoke about set plays a lot in the last few days and ball went in like that…
“In the last 15 minutes we tried some long balls but they didn’t work out. Normally we could be dangerous like that, but tonight we weren’t.”
