New Players for Ajax

[bluedaddy19]

apparently we've walked away from h'veen talks - we offered 4.5, they wanted 5.25+

http://ajax.netwerk.to/nieuws/artikel/2 ... staakt.php

[Ajaxfanuk]

Disappointing, but no point paying over the odds for the kid. We did that with Micky and he hasn't lived up to that at all! Admittedly Dost would have been FAR cheaper but still its the principal

[Orange14]

Disappointing, but no point paying over the odds for the kid. We did that with Micky and he hasn't lived up to that at all! Admittedly Dost would have been FAR cheaper but still its the principal

Dost will be cheaper in the summer when Heerenveen wants to get at least something back for him. He has trouble playing with Beerens and Assaidi who like to come crashing into the middle rather than crossing to the striker.

[Dubbel]

Imo our front office did not try hard enough to get a replacement for Suarez. They failed miserably. If we do not qualify for CL then how much is the net profit on Luis' transfer? Around zero? Plus another 6 months of frustration for the lot of us! I do not blame Heerenveen, they did what they thought was best for them so best to let their fans judge their actions. Hopefully El Hamdaoui will pick up the slack otherwise we are all going to be feeling quite cross at our management before this season ends.

Lets hope for the ff-in best.

[Philippe]

Imo our front office did not try hard enough to get a replacement for Suarez. They failed miserably.

The same old amateurs. As long as the club is managed by these, we will not get anywhere.

[aveslacker]

Imo our front office did not try hard enough to get a replacement for Suarez. They failed miserably. If we do not qualify for CL then how much is the net profit on Luis' transfer? Around zero? Plus another 6 months of frustration for the lot of us! I do not blame Heerenveen, they did what they thought was best for them so best to let their fans judge their actions. Hopefully El Hamdaoui will pick up the slack otherwise we are all going to be feeling quite cross at our management before this season ends.

Lets hope for the ff-in best.

I remember last year we were all bitching about how we didn't get defensive help and we were going to have to settle for Vertonghen and Alderweireld. It turned out that we ended up having the best defense in the Eredivisie.

Have faith in the kids. Does anyone think that Bas Dost was going to put us over the top?

[SPL]

El Ham is Suarez's replacement I thought!! Agree I do not think the signing of Dost would make alot of difference . Does seem odd we ended up haggling over paying an extra 1 m euros for him. I quess times have changed as we paid 10m euros over the odds for Sulejmani .

[bluedaddy19]

I remember last year we were all bitching about how we didn't get defensive help and we were going to have to settle for Vertonghen and Alderweireld. It turned out that we ended up having the best defense in the Eredivisie.

Have faith in the kids. Does anyone think that Bas Dost was going to put us over the top?

1 - yeah... and it wasn't quite enough, was it?

2 - it's not about the kids, we have ONE proper striker on the roster AND AGAIN they sell off our superstar just before a deadline with no replacement... it is absolute garbage

[aveslacker]

I remember last year we were all bitching about how we didn't get defensive help and we were going to have to settle for Vertonghen and Alderweireld. It turned out that we ended up having the best defense in the Eredivisie.

Have faith in the kids. Does anyone think that Bas Dost was going to put us over the top?

1 - yeah... and it wasn't quite enough, was it?

2 - it's not about the kids, we have ONE proper striker on the roster AND AGAIN they sell off our superstar just before a deadline with no replacement... it is absolute garbage

1 - Dunno, I'd take a defense that only gave up twenty goals/season every year. It would be enough to win us the league at least 50% of the time, I'd guess.

2 - Obviously we're losing a lot with Suarez gone, but that means that El Hamdaoui and others have to step up. While we won't end up with a +86 goal differential like we did last year, I still think we have a chance to win the league.

I won't deny it would have been nice to get Dost if we could have. But ultimately I think if we can play as a team, rather than a group of talented individuals, we still have a very good shot at winning this thing.

[cdnajaxfan]

So we got nothing because we won't pay a lousy 250,000?! I know that we are cheap but come on! That is peanuts. No chance of second place now, Europa League, here we come!

Our scouting needs to improve. We have to stop this trend stealing players from other Dutch teams and find them ourselves. We are getting lazy.

[Cedric]

Where did you find this figure? I've seen so much "estimation" today that I'm afraid to read someone saying that Ajax offered more than what Heerenveen asked...
Anyway, anything above 4 millions was way too much for this player. I'm glad Ajax stood firm. Now they have the time to do better for next season...

[aveslacker]

So we got nothing because we won't pay a lousy 250,000?! I know that we are cheap but come on! That is peanuts. No chance of second place now, Europa League, here we come!

Our scouting needs to improve. We have to stop this trend stealing players from other Dutch teams and find them ourselves. We are getting lazy.

So not getting Dost is going to consign us to the Europa League?

[Philippe]

I can see no logical reason for being optimistic : we lost Emanuelson and Suarez. Stekenlenburg and van der Wiel will leave at the end of the season. Maybe others like De Zeeuw and Verthongen will follow. The management of the club has no intention of investing in worthy new players.

It’s only due to our youth raw and to our technical staff that we could win the Dutch and qualify for next season’s … Europa League.

[Over Pasanens Head]

I can see no logical reason for being optimistic : we lost Emanuelson and Suarez. Stekenlenburg and van der Wiel will leave at the end of the season. Maybe others like De Zeeuw and Verthongen will follow. The management of the club has no intention of investing in worthy new players.

It’s only due to our youth raw and to our technical staff that we could win the Dutch and qualify for next season’s … Europa League.

I am the ying to your yang on this one Philippe.

I am more optimistic than I have been for a few years in that the great Ajax sides of the past mainly consisted of locally sourced young players with a sprinkling of "mature" players and "imports". I have a feeling that we are moving back to this model. This is a model that has served this club very well in the past. When we have tried to act the great I am we have fallen flat on our faces as per the last umpteen years.

Let us the fans have patience and may the management of the club not have overblown ideas of their importance and not continually feed us false hopes. However, the last coach that was realistic about the club's chances was Co and looked what happened to him. The top guys in the club must be level headed and provide a period of stability which will allow the club to get back to our roots, which is what this club is all about.

[SPL]

Good words OPH I think we need to let de Boer develop and bring through the youth after all paying out transfer fees for a load of very ordinary players has won us nothing for the last 6 years.Watching these last few games with as many as 9 from our academy makes me think this is the way forward.

We have about 26 first teamers at present but that includes Sno,Donald,Graafland,Tainio,Atouba,
Oleguer all going on frees and Cvitanich, Steks,VdWiel, Vertonghen all likely to go with Silva and Lindgren unlikely to stay and even El Ham does not seem as if he is going to be around for long .That leaves about 12 or 13 not including Ebecilio or Ozbiliz so you see we will need at least 10 new squad players and although we will buy 4or 5 at least 5or 6 will have to come from the academy.

This must be the time, when we have a lot of talent coming through, that we have to stop buying moderate players and let the coach bring them through and give him the time also.

[aveslacker]

I can see no logical reason for being optimistic : we lost Emanuelson and Suarez. Stekenlenburg and van der Wiel will leave at the end of the season. Maybe others like De Zeeuw and Verthongen will follow. The management of the club has no intention of investing in worthy new players.

It’s only due to our youth raw and to our technical staff that we could win the Dutch and qualify for next season’s … Europa League.

I am the ying to your yang on this one Philippe.

I am more optimistic than I have been for a few years in that the great Ajax sides of the past mainly consisted of locally sourced young players with a sprinkling of "mature" players and "imports". I have a feeling that we are moving back to this model. This is a model that has served this club very well in the past. When we have tried to act the great I am we have fallen flat on our faces as per the last umpteen years.

Let us the fans have patience and may the management of the club not have overblown ideas of their importance and not continually feed us false hopes. However, the last coach that was realistic about the club's chances was Co and looked what happened to him. The top guys in the club must be level headed and provide a period of stability which will allow the club to get back to our roots, which is what this club is all about.

That's pretty much how I feel. I still think we have a chance to win the league, but more importantly, I think we have a chance to build a foundation for a team that could be very good for a long time. For the first time in years we have leadership that is taking an all-round approach to the team, rather than buying a bunch of players and throwing them on the pitch in the hopes that something will work.

[Orange14]

My take on what we need based on who has played this season and the young players in the system are: striker and central defense with some questions about both full back positions. We have good wingers right now with Sulejmani, Ozbilitz, Ebecilio, and Jozefzoon (not to mention Lukoki whenever they get around to signing him). Midfield is pretty solid as well. I hope Vermeer will make a full recovery and become our #1 keeper. Alderweireld stays, Vertonghen probably leaves. van der Wiel is a question mark and it's not clear whether Blind is up to the task at fullback (could he be a reliable central defender?). I don't know about the quality of the youth in the central defense. This leaves the biggest unknown at the striker position. Does El Hamdaoui stay after all the sturm und drang of the last month? Is de Jong really a striker? Do we go after either Dost or van Wolfswinkel?

[afcajax73]

i was just reading a report that Ajax did agree a fee of 4.5million euro for Dost, with another 500,000 if we win the league within 5 years.. plus 15% of next sale fee of Dost.. but there wasnt enough time to complete the paperwork.. so they can still sign him on this agreement in the summer.. IF we want to.

[Tom_]

Have you guys read the book Why England Lose? The authors (an economist/statistician and a journalist) are able to show statistically that new managers should NOT be allowed to spend money on transfers. We should be happy that Frank de Boer hasn't bought anyone!

I'm only partially serious, but it is a good book. They have lots of surprising data on interesting topics...

[Orange14]

Have you guys read the book Why England Lose? The authors (an economist/statistician and a journalist) are able to show statistically that new managers should NOT be allowed to spend money on transfers. We should be happy that Frank de Boer hasn't bought anyone!

I'm only partially serious, but it is a good book. They have lots of surprising data on interesting topics...

Yes, it is an excellent book. They also state that the keeper should never dive to the left or right on PKs but defend the middle since chances of saving a kick aimed at the side of the goal is most difficult.

[bluedaddy19]

italian reports claim we are trying to bring back grygera this summer

[Michael_B]

Hmm, mixed feelings. I would say no.

[Flipster81]

Not sure about Grygera, would prefer to see some younger talent.

I would also like to see the partnership with the Chinese FA come to fruit and us have a player or 2 join, Jan Olde Riekerink helped them prepare for the Asia Cup, although they had a poor tournament, a couple of there players looked technically good enough for Ajax. Deng Zhuoxiang for one, he's the Chinese young star of the moment. Imagine the money accumulated for a Deng shirt... 70 euros a pop 1,331,460,000 people in China and a talented creative young player in our ranks.

[kezme44]

dries mertens thinks he would fit well into the ajax style of play. i can see us make a move for him again in the summer

[rjf1]

dries mertens thinks he would fit well into the ajax style of play. i can see us make a move for him again in the summer

Personally, I don't think we need another small player.