John van den Brom reveals the words of booed Wout Weghorst after painful substitution at Twente - Qarabag

Wout Weghorst's arrival at FC Twente has so far been anything but a success. On Thursday, manager John van den Brom took the striker off after 61 minutes against FK Qarabag (0-1), with the Twente crowd at De Grolsch Veste cheering the substitution.

Even so, Van den Brom is not ready to write off his striker. "No, definitely not," the manager said when asked if he was already abandoning his choice of Weghorst. "Writing off a player you have only just signed would be very poor. I am convinced that Weghorst is going to have value for FC Twente. I can say that a thousand times."

Still, there is plenty of room for improvement. "Weghorst is indeed one of the players who played a very mediocre match," Van den Brom said. "But Wout remains a very good striker who is dangerous and is at his best around the 16-metre area. Wout needs more supply, I've said that a few times already."

Good crosses are what Weghorst needs. He made that clear himself straight after coming off against Qarabag. In the closing stages, Twente went more direct and started putting more balls into the box. That's exactly the kind of phase in which Weghorst feels he could make more of an impact.

Van den Brom revealed what his striker said on the bench. "If only I'd had those crosses," he said. "That also makes sense, that's how you think in that situation as well. But it needs time to get used to each other. In the end, we just have to keep working incredibly hard."

Elsewhere in the Twente squad, Van den Brom still has Sam Lammers and Lucas Vennegoor of Hesselink available up front. Supporters would most like to see Lammers thrown straight into the starting line-up, but the manager is not about to ditch his choices so quickly.

Then came the question at the press conference: is Weghorst perhaps really "a finisher" after all? "No, that is not an option for me. But it really does have to be much better, Wout knows that too," he concluded.