On Thursday Santiago Gimenez was a guest together with Alireza Jahanbakhsh Kick ‘t Met by Ziggo Sports. The Feyenoord striker talked about his poor form and his fatigue. On Friday afternoon during the press conference, Arne Slot responded to his attacker’s statements.
Gimenez indicates that he ended up in a bad period after the missed penalty against RKC. “You don’t know whether that penalty caused the dip in form, but things did get worse after that match. We cannot deny that,” says Slot. “But Santiago will always continue to work hard and fortunately, despite I don’t know how many people telling me that I should make a different choice in the cup final, he was able to give himself and me the satisfaction of an assist. That’s why we having had confidence in him for a long time, is also justified.”
The Mexican striker also said that he has recently suffered from fatigue due to the busy playing schedule. Something that raises eyebrows at Slot. “I was quite a bit surprised that he said that, because I have had conversations with him in which I indicated that I could very well imagine that that could be the case with him. And that it might be a good thing.” to skip a match that was no longer that important at that moment. Then he always felt very fit and ready to play. So it is also something for me to learn from players apparently want to play so badly that they make a different sound at the moment than a few weeks later.”
However, Feyenoord’s trainer thinks that Gimenez’s dip in form also has other explanations. “I don’t have the idea that fatigue is a reason why he has scored less for a number of weeks or months, but if you are an analyst and you are in a program and have to form an opinion about why he is not scoring, then just take the easiest conclusion: saying that someone is tired. That is the reality of TV, because you don’t have the time to go into it in depth.”
