Alkmaar boss Jansen won’t dwell on exits

AZ ALKMAAR boss Pascal Jansen insists he isn’t bitter ahead of his side’s Europa League clash with Celtic — despite having to sell £35million worth of talent over the summer.

Ange Postecoglou’s side will meet the Dutch dark horses in the first leg in Glasgow on Wednesday but will face an AZ team who have been significantly weakened over the summer — and who lost their opening Eredivisie match 1-0 at newly-promoted Waalwijk yesterday.

Jansen has sold Calvin Stengs to Nice, Myron Boadu to Monaco and Marco Bizot to Brest, which has brought in a huge bounty to the Eredivisie club. But despite the talent drain and their opening-day setback, London-born coach Jansen believes his side are in good shape ahead of their trip to Scotland after beating Panathinaikos, Real Sociedad and Torino in pre-season warm-up games.

He said: ‘Of course we have lost a lot of very good players, but that’s football. You have to deal with this as a manager. We need to find new players to replace them, but over the years that’s what AZ have shown to be very good at.

‘Last week I was able to use 20 players in a pre-season friendly — players which many a manager would be jealous of having in their team.

‘We remain an ambitious club — we want to have a good run in Europe and our aim is a top-four place in the league, same as it always is.

‘There will be pressure that comes with those aims, but we thrive on that.’