De Boer: Milan win comes as no surprise

Ajax caretaker manager Frank de Boer was not surprised after his side were 2-0 winners against AC Milan at the San Siro.

Despite the qualification places in Group G being already decided, Ajax’s superb performance saw them book a spot in the Round of 32 for the Europa League after they finished third in their group, ahead of Auxerre.

Demy de Zeeuw and Toby Alderweireld scored the goals to win the match for de Boer – himself a former Ajax player – with both goals coming in the second half and being virtually unstoppable.

“I’m not really surprised as I know that a large part of the team comes from the Ajax youth academy and I know what they’re capable of,” said de Boer, who was appointed on a temporary basis on Monday after Martin Jol quit.

“I hope this victory will mean that the guys believe in their ability, as they all can play fantastic football. I tried to put over my vision, and the vision of Ajax, to the players about what we like to see, and I think they followed that pretty well.”

“I underlined that we needed to play like a real team today who wanted to fight for each other; when someone loses the ball, we needed to get organised straight away.”

De Boer explained how a fearless mentality helped his side and admitted keeping their shape was important.

“I think the players did this pretty well. I told them that you have to dare to play football here, and not show any fear, and that’s what they did,” he said.

“We tried to play the ball deep to find Luis (Suarez) or Miralem (Sulejmani) and if that wasn’t possible we just tried to calmly play the ball around, and that also went pretty well.”

“We played well tactically. We kept our shape and created chances by doing that – I think we had 13 or 14 shots on goal and that says a lot.”

De Boer’s opposite number, Milan boss Massimiliano Allegri, said his side struggled for motivation and were poor on the night.

“It’s all about motivation, but I don’t think this was the kind of game we wanted to play,” Allegri said.

“Losing a Champions League match is always disappointing, and we needed to do more on the pitch. When the team plays so poorly, it’s difficult for anyone to shine.”