Arne Slot, AZ Alkmaar's coach, said in an interview with ESPN that the team has made a strong start and aims to compete for the Eredivisie championship. AZ won the Johan Cruyff Shield earlier, and then collected 12 points from their first four Eredivisie matches. The 57-year-old Slot was nominated for August's Manager of the Month award.

In the pursuit of the Johan Cruyff Shield, AZ defeated PSV Eindhoven 4-0, then beat ADO Den Haag (2-0), Utrecht (4-1), Fortuna Sittard (2-0), and Go Ahead Eagles (5-2) in the Eredivisie. To date, AZ is the only team in the Eredivisie this season that remains unbeaten.

Slot said: "Look, you just want to stay in contention for the championship as long as possible. If you're in first place right now, ultimately you want to be in first place, of course." When interviewer Kenneth Perez asked him directly if the goal is to win the title, Slot replied: "I think so. It would be great if we could show more and more consistency. You have to prove it in every game."

Slot continued: "The games you need to win, you have to win. If I can do this with them, and they start to believe—not just me believing like a madman, but everyone believing in me—then we have a good enough team to go as far as possible."

"If you manage that and still stay in contention going into the final stretch, because that's the key, then who knows what will happen next, right? If you're still in the race in the final 7-8 games, every match becomes a final. That would be fantastic."

"At some point you have to say it out loud. I won't say I'm not fighting for the title just because we're leading now. That's not my nature. It's just that everyone needs to think this way. I told my coaching staff this morning that it's not a given."

"That said, we still need to add a little bit more in every area to reinforce the feeling that 'it's possible.' When I look at the other teams in the Eredivisie and then look at ours, I think: 'Okay, let's do it.' We'll definitely lose some games—that's normal."

"We'll have to endure some things, which is also normal. But with a team like this, ultimately you still have to aim for the championship," Slot concluded. AZ will travel to Friesland on Sunday to face Heerenveen. Slot played for Heerenveen from 1992 to 1997 before joining from HFC Haarlem.

In the Eredivisie title race, AZ typically competes with the traditional top three: PSV Eindhoven, Ajax, and Feyenoord. However, Feyenoord's technical director Dirk Kuyt has tempered external expectations, emphasizing that he has never publicly stated that winning the championship is the team's goal this season. "But I have great confidence in our current squad," he added.

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