Sometimes, one or two more years would be better for the club, squad and players’ development. Sometimes, the improvement and raise are too fast. And when your team is not ready for it and your squad doesn’t have (good) enough backup, your expectations will concede a direct punch. I faced this kind of situation during the second half of the 2025/26 season with my VVV-Venlo side as we reached the Europa League group stage and our form, playing style, familiarity with each other or freedom on the pitch were given a direct kick.

What were the (possible) reasons?

Transfers - potential issue #1

If you would hit the F9 key on my keyboard and the transfer history screen would appear, you would see the blank left side of that screen within the 2025/26 incoming transfers. I brought only one player to the club during the summer of 2025 and it was a free signing - Youri Regeer (click to see his profile) after his contract expired with Ajax. I wanted to sell experience Aliou Coly to get rid of his contract (€34k p/m) so I signed Regeer who got €18,75k p/m. Coly moved to Antwerp for €1.4M = win/win.

My aim was to improve the club finances a lot this summer as some of the experienced players were wanted and they also had the last season of their contracts ahead of them = the last chance to earn something. It worked. Coly moved to Antwerp, Sven Mijnans (not experienced but one of the best-paid players) went to Sheffield United for €3M and Francisco Di Franco for €6.75M to Anderlecht. We also added €1.5M for Mohammed Essakkati thanks to his move to Feyenoord after he spent a decent season with affiliate club Austria Klagenfurt and his value increased. Receiving €1.5M with 30% from his next sale is better than leaving him in the reserves squad.

In combination with other smaller transfers, we earned almost €14M during the summer of 2025. It was great but looking backwards, it has also some negatives.

1. The first team squad was “boosted” by players which came back from loans or from U19s team = inexperienced players.

2. My plan was to invest all the money in facilities but instead of improving training facilities, I was informed the training facilities level dropped to average from good and the board had to invest around €2M to just make it back to good. And other requests for improvements were rejected.

The squad size vs. the squad quality - potential issue #2

We had 28 players in the first-team squad at the end of the previous season. We have 30 players in the first-team squad in the middle of the 2025/26 season. But the amount/number of players is not the issue. The issue is the quality of the players.

As I said, most of the major transfers were experienced players with some squad influence too. And the main aim of new members in the first team squad is to learn and develop. They are not supposed to be leaders.

• The average age of the squad at the end of the 2024/25 season was 24 years.

• The average age of the squad in the middle of the 2025/26 season was 21 years.

I already mentioned the squad lacks experience. I also mentioned the average age. You can say it’s not so important. But it is. I had to play some youngsters/newgens during the heavy schedule and it was clear how inexperienced they area in combination with the lack of decisions in the crucial moments or in the critical areas of the pitch.

Injuries - potential issue #3

I highlighted injuries in November & December in the pictures below in both the previous and current seasons. There were more injuries in the last season paradoxically. And I don’t even (or rather) mention 11 injured players during October 2024.

Nick Venema was injured in both seasons at almost the same time. The main issue in my eyes was that we lost the primary keeper, the primary right winger and the primary striker at the same time in the current season.

And in a combination with much heavier schedule (more below), that was the main issue as their backup players were not capable to cover them and to play at the same level. The more I’m writing about it (and thinking about it backwards), the more I see how is it everything connected together.

Schedule October-December 2024 vs. October-December 2025 - potential issue #4

The main difference between this and the previous season is the schedule. We played 11 matches in October, November and December in the season 2024/25. And we had a full week of training available except one week when we played the domestic cup.

This season? We had 17 matches in the same period of the season. And it’s easy to see at the first sight how demanding it was also through the results and the number of goals we conceded. We had a strong October but we had to play 120 minutes + penalties at the of the month in the domestic cup and I think that was the peak of this part of the season as most of the key players were fatigued a lot during November and it resulted to injuries and five defeats in six matches including defeats against bottom FC Emmen or against Go Ahead Eagles. If key players would be fit, we would have won these games without a sweaty shirt.

The 2025/26 season so far

I’m usually ignoring pre-season friendlies when I write about my save(s) but I enjoyed summer break prior to the current season including three home tournaments with some very good opponents including LASK Linz or West Ham United and Celtic. Some results also gave me a confidence boost ahead of our debut in the Europa League group stage.

Despite beating Celtic or Dinamo Zagreb, we started the league campaign with a narrow defeat in Eindhoven against PSV after an own goal in 90+4. The home 5:4 win over Ajax was surely one of the highlights in the opening part of the season. Especially as we were 4:0 and 5:1 ahead but we also went to 10 men and if the match would continue for more than five minutes, Ajax would probably win 6:5.

Our Europa League journey started at home against Sturm Graz. I didn’t have some special expectations for this competition. The main goal was to earn as much money as possible to be able to reinvest it in the facilities. We beat Sturm 2:0 and my aim was to win most of the home matches. We lost away from home against Wolfsburg and Lyon, and we also lost to Arsenal at home but we won in Malmö thanks to four goals by Nick Venema. And we beat Anderlecht 3:2 at home despite being 0:2 down after the opening six minutes. We are currently 21st in the new Europa League format in the group of 36 teams. We will play Villarreal (A) and Qarabag (H) in January. I don’t see us earning a place in the knockout stage, maybe the “Knock Out Play Off Round” but we will see. We already earned around €5.5M in prize money and TV Revenue thanks to this competition. If we will be able to earn some more = win/win.

Our season in the domestic cup ended in the 2nd round after a 2:4 defeat by PSV Eindhoven after an extra-time while we played without two players which received straight red cards. That’s another thing connected to the inexperience I mentioned above.

Our Eredivisie standing improved a little bit thanks to two wins over AZ and N.E.C. in the last league rounds before a short winter break. We are 7th right now with four points gap to 4th place and seven points to 2nd place. Feyenoord is having a great season so far and they are 8 points clear at the top of the table. Mainly thanks to Santiago Giménez and Julian Draxler duo. But I think we can move up in the table if we will have enough time to concentrate on just one competition and we will have enough time to rest players.

Lesson learned?

Well, firstly, I need to tell myself to calm down. It’s still only the fourth season with the club. And despite we started in the second tier, we are already in the Europa League main stage. So, calm down, Ondrej, your club is doing great.

The board wants to play “attacking/possession/entertaining/high-tempo pressing football” and to finish in the top half of the Eredivisie. What can be more attacking and entertaining than winning 5:4 over Ajax? I know defeats are a common thing and this team is absolutely average. It’s only about some simple things that make it easier and I have to accept the fact there won’t be only green circles on the schedule screen. That would be weird. It’s only about expectations in my own head. I need to lower them if I want to continue with this formation and with this approach. Another option is to change the formation…

The only thing I know I would like and will try to make differently is that I will try to sign more than one new player next summer to have bigger (and better) squad depth rather than only promoting 16 years old newgens. If I will earn the European Cup place for sure…

Thank you for reading, take care.