The sun is shining on a gorgeous spring day in Amsterdam as Ajax, on the verge of a fifth Dutch title in six years, head out for morning training.

Manager Frank de Boer barks orders from a golf buggy - an achilles injury makes this his current preferred mode of transport - and once the pre-match run-through is complete, a group of players stays behind with a coach for extra practice.

Shots are blazed all over the place and a young striker yells in frustration as his final effort hits the bar. As the session ends, the coach takes a ball, flicks it up for himself and casually floats a volley over the goalkeeper into the top corner. He turns to gather the rest of the balls and heads in.

Martin Keown greets former Arsenal team-mate Dennis Bergkamp during his recent visit to Amsterdam

The former Gunners pair share a laugh at the Ajax training base as they reminisce about their Highbury days

Keown and Bergkamp won three Premier League titles and the FA Cup three times between 1997 and 2004

Bergkamp, now a coach at Ajax having retired a decade ago, shares a joke with Sportsmail columnist Keown

Ajax boss Frank de Boer was riding an electric trike at the time of Sportsmail's visit to catch up with Bergkamp

That’s the Dennis Bergkamp I know. The elegant, skilful striker who lit up the Premier League, the stylish Dutchman who helped change English football.

I shared an Arsenal dressing room with Dennis for the best part of a decade and, though we have not seen each other for a number of years, when we shake hands we’re immediately talking football. The years might have passed, but nothing has changed.

Dennis lives for football. As De Boer’s assistant at Ajax, he is one of a number of club legends - including Edwin van der Sar and Marc Overmars in the boardroom - who act as Ajax’s ‘technical heart’. The late, great Johan Cruyff fought for them to be put in position, a fight that became so bitter it required a lawsuit. But to me, Dennis represents the future of Ajax. He, more than anybody, is the spiritual successor to Cruyff.

‘Sometimes it does feel like that,’ says Dennis. ‘There was always a certain style, a feeling Cruyff had about football. He was looking for a unique kind of play. At Ajax it means we always play 4-3-3, always with wingers, always attacking, always trying to dominate.

The duo shared a dressing room for over a decade but have not seen each other for a number of years

As assistant to De Boer, Bergkamp is one of a number of club legends now working as Ajax's 'technical heart'

Football revolutionary Johan Cruyff, an Ajax legend as player and manager, passed away in March aged 68

Bergkamp stares ahead as he listens intently to former Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar

‘A lot of people talk about systems but I am a firm believer in individuals. If you’ve got good players with football intelligence then you can form a team. That’s what Cruyff had. He felt to win games without attacking football is boring but to play attacking football without winning is useless.

‘When I was doing my coaching badges, my wife and I had dinner with him and he was explaining how he saw the future of Ajax.

‘I was just coming out of football and was thinking I could coach a youth team, taking it slowly - but he wanted me to be a director! He was way ahead of other people. But he had to really force things to get it done and leave a legacy with those ex-players in position.’

I’m a big believer in ex-players becoming more involved in football and not just as managers or coaches. There is a real resistance in the game to employing former pros at board level or in more administrative roles but Dennis sums up perfectly why it can work.

Bergkamp speaks with Keown at the Ajax training ground and has been coaching at the club since 2011

Now an assistant with a huge part to play at Ajax, Bergkamp is back at the club he left for Inter Milan in 1993

Keown poses with Ajax's leading appearance holder Sjaak Swart during his recent visit to the Dutch capital

DENNIS BERGKAMP FACTFILE As a player Ajax (1986-1993) Appearances: 237 Goals: 122 Inter Milan (1993-1995) Appearances: 81 Goals: 30 Arsenal (1995-2006) Appearances: 423 Goals: 120 Holland (1990-2000) Caps: 79 Goals: 37 As a coach Ajax assistant (2011-) Advertisement

‘One of the abilities of ex-players is that we can adjust ourselves very quickly,’ he says. ‘In football if I play against a slow defender I know what to do, or if I play against a midfielder I know where I want to put him to create space - we’re always adjusting. That’s what we do in this new job. Everything that comes to us, maybe it’s new, but we’ve got the ability to adjust.

‘We are keen and eager to learn things. We’ve got school degrees but we never used them because we were playing football. We’re all, in our own way, intelligent people.

‘Like (former Arsenal player) Marc Overmars. Maybe he’s not the brightest in school but I’m sure he’s one of the best negotiators out there! Even with antiques and things like that, he’s always dealing! He loves that and he knows how to do it but now he’s doing it with footballers. It’s the same skill. Plus he knows football. He played at the highest level.

‘The best directors are the ones who worked on the factory floor, who came up through the ranks. The ones who make the decisions should be the people who know what’s really happening and how it impacts down below. Johan used to say it was all about the feeling of players, the feeling of pressure. How can you make football decisions at the highest level if you’ve never played for 60,000 people? Then you know what pressure is in football. If you get booed by 60,000 people, you know.'

Keown was also reunited with ex-team-mate Marc Overmars who played for Arsenal between 1997 and 2000

Overmars had a gift for Keown - a photograph of his match-winning goal against title rivals United in 1998

Dennis arrived at Highbury in 1995, just after George Graham had given our team compact stability. It was always ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ but we were never really allowed to go out and express ourselves fully until the arrival of Arsene Wenger. He let us all play, even defenders like me. It was refreshing and made us more complete as players, as people.

Dennis was one of a number of foreign players who arrived in the late 1990s to transform the club and the Premier League. ‘When I walked in it was a team operating at 60 or 70 per cent,’ he says. ‘The mix could have been better. You had the English mentality, but that was it. There were players like Ian Wright scoring goals and Paul Merson with unbelievable skills making a difference. Then you had that English backbone, but it needed much more creativity, more pace.

‘But our strength was that English mentality. That was always there. Even with (French) players like Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit, they had that mentality that no one was getting through.

Bergkamp joined Arsenal in 1995 and went on to become a club legend with 120 goals in 423 appearances

Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit made up the centre of Arsenal's steely midfield during the late nineties

‘Then Wenger gave us so much more. I know many English players said he added two or three years to their career, just with his mentality. By being professional about your game - the food, the drinking, the attitude, that’s what he gave to the club. So with that and the arrival of all those great players, that made the difference. Suddenly we were a step further than other teams.’

In that era we enjoyed terrific battles with Manchester United and we were the teams to beat. After winning the Double in 1998, we had a chance to repeat the achievement in 1999 but a missed penalty by Dennis proved decisive.

It was the FA Cup semi-final replay against United at Villa Park and Dennis had a last-minute penalty to win the game. I felt he wasn’t going to score. He’d missed the final the year before with injury and didn’t share in that victory, so I thought he was under more pressure than anybody else, though I couldn’t say anything.

Bergkamp believes Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger gave his players so much with his professional approach

Overmars and Bergkamp celebrate Arsenal's double in 1998 in front of thousands of fans in north London

‘I was confident!’ Dennis responds. ‘I was not the best penalty-taker but at that moment the responsibility was with me. I gladly left it to Thierry Henry in the years after and Wrighty before me because they are more clinical. In my mind, it has to be a little bit nicer - it has to be in the top corner.

‘That miss was one of the biggest blows in my career. If someone else misses a penalty you can blame them in your mind. You don’t, but in your mind you think, “He should have scored that”. Now it was me.

‘Football is a game of moments. If I score the penalty, they (Manchester United) probably don’t win the Treble. That made it their season.’

Bergkamp saw hIs FA Cup semi-final replay penalty against Man United saved by Peter Schmeichel in 1999

Bergkamp cuts a dejected figure as the Red Devils went on to score in extra-time before winning the FA Cup

Bergkamp is challenged by Jaap Stam during one of the many iconic battles between Arsenal and Man United

For many years it was our season. Dennis and I won six major trophies together at Arsenal but since the Invincibles in 2003-04, Wenger has struggled to recapture the magic of that group. There have been FA Cup triumphs but no league titles. I ask Dennis why that is.

‘Arsenal have a really good team and a really, really good squad. They’ve got tremendous players and they should be able to win the championship, but one of the biggest problems is defence.

They should be able to win the title but one big problem is the defence. BERGKAMP ON ARSENAL FAILINGS...

‘So many times the team have to react to going a goal behind or two goals behind. That happens too much. And at this time of the year you can’t drop points. We would always have a dip in November, but their dip has come in the second half of the season. That didn’t happen a lot in our time.’

But for Dennis, sustaining that level of success is about being in the right frame of mind more than anything.

‘In Holland, we say you have to live like a monk,’ he explains. ‘You focus on your job, you go home, you eat, you watch television, you go to bed. You get up, you go to training and you just live for football. For some people that’s more difficult than for others but there’s so much glory at the end. There’s a certain buzz that goes through the club and you have to cherish that.

‘Sometimes it doesn’t look like this current group has that. But once you’ve tasted success, then you know how it is. If you know how to win games it gets easier. When they won the FA Cup, they were in the flow and able to win it again. Now they need a championship and then with this squad they can stay there for many years.’

Wenger and Mesut Ozil look dejected last Saturday and Bergkamp believes Arsenal should be winning the title

Laurent Koscielny and Gabriel Paulista applaud fans - Bergkamp believes the Arsenal defence is a problem

But this season more than most represented a golden opportunity for Arsenal and it looks like they have thrown it away. Dennis, like the rest of us, can’t quite believe how the Premier League has unfolded. ‘This is one of those seasons that people will talk about for years. It’s a one-off.

We’re ahead of United, Chelsea, City but not top. It’s ridiculous! BERGKAMP ON THE TITLE RACE...

‘When you start a season you think, “OK, if we can stay on top of Man City, Man United and Chelsea, we will win the league”. Now there are two other teams in front of Arsenal. It’s ridiculous.

‘A lot of years, I felt if we could stay in the top four with the Champions League guaranteed, it was OK. But it could be a massive change for the club if they win something.’

Arsenal’s erratic form has sparked a lot of anger in the stands but, like many former Arsenal players, Dennis is respectful when he talks about the future of Wenger. We all know what he did not just for our club but for English football and he deserves to leave on his own terms.

Arsenal are above usual title rivals Chelsea, Man City and United but still not top of the Premier League table

I’m sure he’s got the drive and ambition... as long as he doesn’t lose connection with the team. BERGKAMP ON WENGER'S FUTURE...

‘He knows his players so well,’ says Dennis. ‘It’s like a puzzle, he’s adjusting every player all the time so everything fits together. He’s got a picture in his mind how it should be. And he knew when to push the team, when to let go, when to relax.

‘I still think he’s got that drive and if he gets the opportunity to stay there, he will take it I’m sure. He’s still a good manager and you never know what you’ll get if you bring a new one in. That’s the problem.

‘Look what happened at Man United when Sir Alex Ferguson left. You never know what’s better. To bring someone new, someone fresh or stick to someone who knows the club. I’m sure (Wenger) is still ambitious to win trophies. As long as you don’t lose the connection with the team.’

Bergkamp achieved such legendary status at Arsenal that he has a statue outside the Emirates Stadium

The former Arsenal attacker believes Wenger still has the drive and ambition to remain at the Emirates

As we discuss old memories and new beginnings, our thoughts turn to Roy Hodgson’s England team after their hugely encouraging performance in Germany and the subsequent defeat against Holland at Wembley.

Despite that loss, England enjoyed 67 per cent of possession, a statistic most Englishmen would never have thought possible against the Dutch. In the past Dennis and I have talked about how foreign imports were stifling young English talent but he feels that, if anything, the extra competition has improved the technical play of our best youngsters.

‘Now those English players are developing,’ he says. ‘They’ve got the English mentality but football-wise they are creating a more technical, European style. It’s an evolution of football.

‘Holland played France before England and they beat us 3-2. France look like a proper team. They’re a young team as well, but so are England. Germany are always on the edge of winning trophies, the same as Italy and Spain. But I’m surprised in a positive way by the England team.’

Bergkamp believes the influx of foreign stars to the Premier League over the years has aided English players

Dennis has always talked enthusiastically about youth development and the evolution of the game. His love for the sport is clear and he wants to pass on his football knowledge and intelligence. All of which begs the obvious question: he’s an assistant now, but does he ever want to be a manager?

I like to be able to switch off... I don’t want to be a manager. BERGKAMP ON MANAGEMENT

‘I like to be able to switch off every now and then,’ he says. ‘It’s like when we were players, I train in the morning but I like to be with my family in the afternoon and do other things. As a manager you need to be switched on 24/7.

‘I love football but I love the details, the individual play. I’m not so interested in the tactical thing but as a manager you have to be focused on that.

‘It’s the constant information. If this is what it takes then I don’t want to be a manager. I’m an assistant and I prefer to be on the pitch, especially with youngsters, the ones with real potential. That’s my kind of thing.’

Bergkamp likes to switch off away from the training field and so has no intention of becoming a manager

When I hear my old friend and team-mate talk like this, his love of Ajax and his sense of responsibility becomes clear. By giving people such as Dennis key roles, Cruyff was able to very skilfully protect Ajax’s future and ensure his legacy and philosophy would live on.

But it does make me wonder whether a similar set-up could ever be recreated at Arsenal with former players involved in every tier of the club - at board level, commercial level, coaching level and, one day, managerial level. We had the characters and the intelligence in our dressing room to make an impact in all aspects of the game.

‘It would be a fantastic challenge, but another court case?’ he laughs. ‘I don’t think I can handle that. If it’s a clear road and you had someone on the board who wants that system, then maybe. But I feel I’m not finished here. I want to be alert, now that Cruyff has gone, that it doesn’t change. There are many, many people who would like to change it again and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.’