Dirk Kuyt apologised to Fenerbahce fans after his first game as interim manager ended in a 2-1 home defeat to Goztepe on Saturday evening. The result came after manager Ismail Kartal resigned following Monday's 2-1 loss to Galatasaray, with Kuyt put in charge until the November international break.
Apology after first match
Kuyt said after his first game in charge: "We want to apologise to our fans because they deserve much more. But at the same time, the fans also know the situation we are in."
He added: "We are in a tough situation right now, and to get out of it, we need to perform much better and do things better. It was a tough match; we certainly did our absolute best to win today, but unfortunately, we couldn't get the result we wanted, so we are feeling major disappointment. We could have performed much better."
How the match unfolded
Fenerbahce led 1-0 at half-time after Matteo Guendouzi scored on the cusp of half-time. Goztepe then scored twice in the last 15 minutes to win at Sukru Saracuoglu Stadium.
Kuyt explained: "In the first half, we had more than 72% possession, which is what we want; this is how we want to play, and we scored a nice goal. Afterwards, we wanted to do even more; we wanted to keep it up, but we didn't make a good start to the second half."
He continued: "Following that, we conceded a goal from an individual error during our build-up play. Since building up from the back is something I want, these kinds of individual errors might fall on my responsibility. But after that, we had three very clear chances: Kerem had a header, Lukaku had a chance, and Kerem also had a shot that hit the post."
Kuyt said: "If we had scored one of those, it would have been 2-1. Of course, in times like these, you also need luck on your side, especially given the situation we're in."
League form and statistic
Fenerbahce have won just five of their ten Super Lig games. According to Flashscore, Goztepe's win was just their third away win there in 56 years.
Next fixture
Kuyt's next game as Fenerbahce head coach will be against Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League.
