Tactically, I read Kenneth Bornauw’s interview in HLN with my folder of team sheets open on my knees. Anderlecht’s CEO is keeping faith in Vítor Bruno. No vote of no confidence, no three-game ultimatum. But he says that backing the coach doesn’t mean the club agrees with everything he has done in recent weeks.
And then there’s the line that made me put my pen down: “There has been too much experimenting when we have to perform every week,” he told HLN. The club has about 32 players. He wanted a smaller squad, which wasn’t possible this summer.
Thirty-two. On a Sunday at three o’clock I’m happy when I’ve got thirteen, one of whom has to leave at half-time to pick up the kids. I know about experimenting too: when my left-back doesn’t turn up, my spare keeper plays left-back. Nobody calls that a project.
Bornauw wants a pecking order and a set XI, with fourteen or fifteen core players. I feel understood there. Fourteen or fifteen is exactly my squad when it isn’t chucking it down. A set XI, I run that on Tuesday. When we’ve got eleven, that is.
He also mentions the output inside the box: according to him, Anderlecht score less than the average in the Jupiler Pro League (Belgium’s top flight) relative to expected goals. At my place we don’t have expected goals. We have the club delegate, who writes down in his folder the chances “we should have taken”. The column is long.
Silly question, but if the club has 32 players and wants fifteen, where do the other seventeen train?
All three league defeats came away from home, including Union and Ghent. At home, only Lyon have beaten Anderlecht, according to Bornauw. He talks about mental strength and the coach’s choices on the road. Me, I think about the slope of the opposition’s pitches, but I don’t know the ones in Ghent. A flat pitch away, mind you.
The ambition is still the top three, the CEO said. I’ve put my folder away. Fifteen names, in biro, on a sheet.
It’s true, we checked: HLN.
