Vandenhaute: "No one is bigger than the club"

SATURDAY, 14 JANUARY 2023, 23:51 - lajoya
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OTHER Wouter Vandenhaute has come out with several video messages, in which he admits, among other things, that perhaps he should have tried harder to keep Vincent Kompany at the club longer after all. "Nobody is bigger than the club," Vandenhaute concludes.


Coaches

"One of the first decisions I took when I became president of RSC Anderlecht was to make Vincent Kompany coach. I still stand very firmly behind that, because we were completely on the same page. We wanted to bring attacking football, we wanted to work with young players, we wanted to bring back the Anderlecht pride, and I think we did that well in those two years. It was trial and error, there were good moments and lesser moments. But in the end we made play-off I two years in a row. Last year we made it to the cup final. I can still see the images at the Heysel in front of me, which was fantastic. It also seemed we were really back. Only we missed our final, we didn't play a good game, and went out with penalties. That might have been a déclic if we had won that one.

I had to conclude that in recent months the chemistry was a bit less anyway. We then talked to Vincent about that, and together we came to the conclusion that it was better to part ways. Vincent left for Burnley. That went off in a serene atmosphere, by the way. And I am very happy for him that he is doing so well there now at Burnley and I hope very much that he will become a Premier League coach next season.

After Vincent Kompany, we wanted to bring in an experienced coach. A coach who also knows the Belgian league well. So we ended up with Felice Mazzù, who had done a wonderful job at Union.

In a first phase, that also worked well. We had a good preparation, a strong league start with 9 out of 12, and we reached the group stage in Europe. But then that crumbled very quickly. It turned out that Felice Mazzù's way of working and style of play were quite at odds with Vincent's very modern way of working.

That was a serious error of judgement, and we drew the conclusion from that. In retrospect, perhaps I should have tried harder to keep Vincent with us longer anyway.

With the arrival of Brian Riemer, we are now going back to what we built up those two years with Vincent. Brian is a very modern trainer. He is tried and tested in the Premier League. You feel that in terms of the way of working, in terms of dynamics, in terms of enthusiasm, in terms of modern ideas, they come from the same school to a certain extent."

Neerpede Academy
"When it comes to Neerpede, we have to dare to look at ourselves critically. I think we need to take some steps with Neerpede. Neerpede was way ahead of most academies 15 years ago. It did a fantastic job, and to this day is doing a very good job. But we need to make sure we don't lose the edge we have today.


Therefore, we urgently need to make some innovations. First of all, we need to look at our infrastructure, because we are simply lagging behind there. We have to work on that and find solutions for that, and we are working on that. We have allocated money for that.

Jean Kindermans has always been very important in the story of Neerpede. He is the architect of that story, and we would also like to continue working with Jean. We hope he will also be part of the future. I hope that in the coming period Jean and Jesper [Fredberg] can come to a renewed agreement."

Results
"I am particularly disappointed with our place in the standings. That's not where Anderlecht belongs. We have to try to climb up as quickly as possible. We certainly haven't had some of the luck on our side, but you can't put everything on that. We certainly didn't have our best summer mercato behind us. On the other hand, our scouting department has done a very good job over the past three years in very difficult circumstances, with few resources. Now we have had a lesser summer mercato, and you pay that in cash.

Of course we want and will strengthen during this mercato. I want to stress that today we are a healthy club. Again, there have been all kinds of reports in recent days about the lousy financial state we would be in, but that is simply not true. We have eliminated our debts, we have raised fresh capital. And we are going to use that capital wisely. We are still not a rich club, and so when we bring in new players, we also have to part with other players. But that's the mechanism most clubs are in.

We are just going to do everything we can so that we can start that way up again as soon as possible."

On supporters' criticism:

"Last Sunday, our supporters were fantastic. That is the audience we need to play our football. If those people then criticise, are frustrated and disillusioned, that just comes in hard.

I hear that some of our supporters accuse me of a lack of vision. I am afraid I have to come to the conclusion that I have not communicated this properly, sufficiently, or even at all. That is my fault and my responsibility. Because for me, that vision about Anderlecht is clear. We have to be a club that brings beautiful and modern football, that wins its matches, with young players, with young coaches. I also want us to be a club that is broadly embedded in society. That is also one of the reasons why we are so fully committed to women's football. I think we should also be a club that takes its supporters very seriously.

If I have used the word 'culture change' in the past, it does not mean at all that we want to touch Anderlecht's DNA. That has nothing to do with it. We shouldn't touch that DNA. What I do mean is that we have to realise that we are no longer the richest club and that we have to behave accordingly. We have to work harder, we have to be sharper, we have to show more winning mentality and we have to be prepared to go all the way every day. We are going to have to work harder than before, when we did become the richest club in the country. That is the only way to become the best and the biggest club in Belgium again.

We have strong and ambitious shareholders, a good Board of Directors, strong management with a vision, with people who know exactly where they want to go and who are also given the mandate and space to do their thing. And we have great employees. What I feel enormously, every day at Neerpede, that is that hunger and that desire to show again that we are Anderlecht and that we want to come back. I have seen all those people suffer, this week, but at the same time I have seen them all stand back. They said: we are not going to let this happen.

Nobody is bigger than the club. I want to question myself. And I hope that now we can close ranks and all of us can get behind the club again."



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