AZ Alkmaar unexpectedly fell to FC Utrecht in the Dutch top flight the previous afternoon. With it being an away game, it was not supposed to be a walk on the park scenario for Alkmaar by any means, but, the Cheese Farmers had the upper hand given the fact they had been pretty consistent leading up to this fixture.
But, the end result of the game was nothing less than a shock for the fans of both the teams. It was not the sheer brilliance of Utrecht which led to the thumping of Alkmaar.
Alkmaar actually played very poorly themselves, hitting the self destruct button. If Alkmaar had done even the slightest bit of justice to the capability that they have got, there was no way they were going to lose by a margin of 4 goals against a team that’s in the bottom half of the table. The betting odds at marathonbet.co.uk before the game, had made AZ firm favourites.
This loss saw Alkmaar slipping from the third to the fourth position. The Alkmaar management might just see it as a collective failure of all the departments on a bad day and shrug it off and that’s what they probably should do, but, what’s necessary is that they realize that a few key areas need to be looked at a little bit.
Alkmaar must make sure that they don’t just relax and take it easy when they see any weaker opposition showing up against them. Their performance against Utrecht was probably reckless. There was no planning whatsoever. They underrated the quality of the opposition and just tried to go bang-bang. They should avoid that in the games coming up, though their chances of landing European football have fallen, according to the latest betting odds at Marathonbet.com.
In the next game, Alkmaar is taking on Vitesse Arnhem which is at no. 6 with 41 points in their possession right now.