The man who started our seven-goal thrashing of PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday night had reason to feel extra satisfied with his night’s work.
Jurrien Timber began his career with Feyenoord before enjoying five successful seasons with Ajax – both huge rivals of reigning Dutch champions PSV.
So he afforded himself a smile in his post-match interview when reflecting on his far-post header that opened the scoring in the 18th minute.
"That felt really nice,” he said. “Obviously it’s not my favourite place so it’s nice to come back to Holland and score against PSV. An amazing cross from Declan [Rice] and all the other goals were nice to see so I hope we made the fans happy today.
"Everyone was really creative today, really energetic from us, already I felt that even before the game. Going into the game I felt that the chances were going to be there and we took them as a team and we did amazing."
Jurrien had spoken in his pre-match press conference the day before the game about ‘changing the narrative’ following two Premier League games without scoring, and this performance was comprehensive confirmation of that.
"Yes, I think we showed a lot of different qualities here. We have before this match but you just have to be clinical when you come in the box, stay strong defensively and we did that today.
"We just have to take this confidence to the next game, not just the Champions League but on Sunday, a beautiful game again to take the confidence with us. We’ve shown what we’re capable of again and the most important thing is to feel that within ourselves."
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