Feyenoord goes into the winter break with a three-point lead over the competition

Feyenoord will go into the winter break with a three-point lead over the competition. The Rotterdammers beat Excelsior 5-1 beat fellow Rotterdammers Excelsior on their home pitch. Sebastian Szymanski and Orkun Kokcü both scored two times.

The 2016-17 season was the last time Feyenoord went into the winter break as league leaders. Feyenoord was 5 points clear of Ajax then, and they went on to win the title that season, the last in their history.

Excelsior took a surprising lead after 4 minutes through Kenzo Goudmijn, but the lead did not last long. After only 10 minutes, Feyenoord drew level via Szymanski, who scored from outside the 16-yard box.

Not much later, Feyenoord made it 2-1: Orkun Kokcü scored from a free kick that got deflected. Mainly due to Excelsior goalkeeper Stijn van Gassel who made numerous impressive saves; this was the score going into halftime.

At halftime, Feyenoord said goodbye to Luis Sinisterra and Marco Sense, who were both present in De Kuip. Sinisterra left for Leeds United in the summer, Senesi was sold to Bournemouth.

Shortly after the restart, Szymanski scored for the second time with a diagonal shot, and halfway through the second half Kokcu also got his second with a volley.

Captain Kokcü followed in the footsteps of Henk Schouten, Rinus Bennaars, Franz Hasil, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Jonathan de Guzman, who all also scored at least twice on their hundredth league game for Feyenoord.

Schouten even scored four in his match.

Walemark came on after half an hour. He replaced the Brazilian Igor Paixao, who had to leave the pitch with an injury. Up top, Arne Slot had given his preference to Santiago Gimenez above Danilo, who was brought on after an hour.

Fifteen minutes before time, Walemark scored the final goal of the match. The Swede was fortunate to do so, as an attempted clearance by an Excelsior defender went into the net after hitting Walemark.

There was a minute's silence before the game due to the passing of Cor van der Gijp, the club top scorer of Feyenoord, who passed away at the age of 91.

Feyenoord has 33 points after fourteen games, three more than Ajax and PSV. Earlier this weekend, Ajax could not defeat FC Emmen away (3-3), and PSV lost at home to AZ (0-1). The last-named club is four points behind Feyenoord.

On the 8th of January, Feyenoord will be back in action. Arne Slot's side will face FC Utrecht away.