Dick Advocaat encouraged despite defeat as ADO Den Haag boss on debut | OneFootball

Experienced coach Dick Advocaat was encouraged with what he saw despite seeing his debut as ADO Den Haag’s new boss end in defeat, De Telegraaf reports.

The Hague-based club took an early lead against Almere thanks to Malik Sellouki’s opener before Jeredy Hilterman equalised before half-time.

Things went from bad to worse when Daryl Werker was shown the red card and the floodgates opened as the hosts secured a 4-1 win, leaving Advocaat to see his side secure their fourth defeat in the last five league games.

But despite the result, it seems Advocaat is taking the positives for a side who missed out on promotion last season but are increasingly finding themselves in a relegation battle.

“It would have been nice if we had won, but then everyone would have thought we had it under control right away and we don’t have that yet,” said the former national team coach, who was recruited to succeed the sacked Dirk Kuyt.

Advocaat set himself the goal of working the Hague club up from 17th place in the Eerste Divisie.

The experienced coach was especially satisfied with the first half. “Then we played from a good organisation and then you can be successful. In the first 35 minutes we had six chances, so we could have created more than one. We gave the 1-1 away totally unnecessarily, but that happens quite often in this team.”

Advocaat saw that things did not go well in the second half. “When the spaces start getting bigger, the players get into trouble. Well we did miss some defining players, but that is no excuse. There is still something to learn.”