Shakhtar General Director Serhiy Palkin told whether the second place in the Premier League would be considered a failure.
Sergey Palkin— When there is a war, it is difficult to call something a failure. Despite the fact that we suffered more than any club. Who left Dynamo today? One or two players maximum. They have the whole team. We don't have half of the staff. We need to recreate this team in a month. The coaching staff also left. We have more tasks than anyone else - at least when compared with Dynamo.
Our task and situation is much more complicated than theirs. But we do not remove our championship ambitions. Yes, our situation has changed, some things have to be done from scratch, but we are very, very charged.
- What is the credibility of Igor Yovichevich?
- We don't have this: "Here, we give you a month, show the result." When we made the decision to invite him, we knew what kind of person he is, how he works, how he works with young people. We understood that we would have many young people. We knew everything about him completely and we know what to expect from him.
Naturally, we are trying to help him so that everything will work out for us. This is life, no one can guarantee anything. But now we are in a good enough mood. We really believe in him. Even if you look at the game with Ajax. The guys have been training together for 15 days, but some picture is already visible, especially in the first half they showed interesting football. Again, taking into account who we are playing against.
Ajax bought one player for 30 million, a second for 30 million, and a third for 20 million. There is a fairly serious, powerful team that claims, maybe not for the Champions League final, but leaving the group is not even discussed at all. This is a strong team, and we looked good in the first half. Taking into account the fact that they scored from offside when they equalized, then winning the first half 1-0 with a team where the head coach has been working with the guys for only 15 days is worthy of respect.
At the moment everything is shaping up. I'm going in the right direction. I can't say that something doesn't work.
