Ajax Scouting

[SPL]

Not sure where to put this but Goal.com have article today at 11.00 , sorry cannot reproduce it on here ,about our need to improve scouting. It lists all the recent signings who have been poor and the only players who are decent have been brought from other Dutch sides ie Suarez and they could have added De Zeeuw and KJH .It is basically saying we need to improve our scouting and I would agree as we are signing a load of dross and have done for the last 10 years.It mentions the only current player we have found who is good is Enoh and he came from CTAjax and not our scouts.

I get the feeling all our scouts do is to look at youth football in Holland , well 40 miles max from the Arena as the article from our youth director said last year.

I started to reply on the above but did not finish as my keyboard got stuck so it was only half an a comment. I meerly pointed out we have had a poor defence but now we have relied on local kids it looks ok . I think we should go back to giving the kids a chance and stop buying dross.I do think the club should improve its OS scouting and Scandanavia and the Balkans should be places especially where there is talent .I note the only Scandanavian in our youth set up Christian Eriksen is highly rated by Jol.

When one of you reproduces the article, I am hopeless at such things, I am sure there will be a debate on it.

[martinkohout]

The link to the full goal.com article is here.

Here's a relevant excerpt:

A quick look at the current squad tells us that Ajax’s superb scouting network from the 1990s has totally disappeared and has been replaced by people who are not up to the job. Kennedy Bakircioglu, Dennis Rommedahl, Rasmus Lindgren, George Ogararu, Dario Cvitanich (pictured, right), Bruno Silva (pictured, left), Timothee Atouba, Gabri and Oleguer have all got the approval of the Ajax scouts in the past couple of years, but are nothing more than bench-warmers in Amsterdam.

The few foreigners who are actually impressing at the club at the moment are either a product of the youth academy (Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen) or were scouted by another Eredivisie team (Luis Suarez/Groningen). Pretty much the only successful foreigner at the Dutch powerhouse whose arrival could be credited to scouting activity is Cameroonian midfielder Eyong Enoh, and even then it was actually the Ajax Cape Town scouts who did the job.

Many have argued that it’s simply impossible for a Dutch team to get in on the action when it comes to signing promising youngsters due to the stiff competition from the richer teams in Italy, Spain, England, Germany and France. Nevertheless, teams such as Groningen (Luis Suarez, Marcus Berg), Heerenveen (Danijel Pranjic, Georgios Samaras, Miralem Sulejmani) and Twente (Marko Arnautovic, Bryan Ruiz) have no trouble finding the right man whenever needed.

Therefore, it appears as if it’s not the competition from other teams that is preventing Ajax from finding the right players. It’s more likely that the Amsterdam side simply miss out on the good stuff because of their own incompetence. For some reason, they either fail to spot the players who have the potential to make it at Ajax, or they do not succeed in actually signing the player they want.

[Blind3]

OUCH !!! The article sure seems to put into words what alot of Ajax fans have been thinking... at least if I read the threads correctly.

[Cedric]

Kennedy Bakircioglu, Dennis Rommedahl, Rasmus Lindgren, George Ogararu, Dario Cvitanich (pictured, right), Bruno Silva (pictured, left), Timothee Atouba, Gabri and Oleguer have all got the approval of the Ajax scouts in the past couple of years, but are nothing more than bench-warmers in Amsterdam.

Almost all those players are/were international in pretty decent national teams and/or were successful with their previous team. I think Ogararu had a good first season, as were the first six months of Lindgren when he returned. Gabri was of course a starter until Van Basten came and got injuries.

So the scouting can of course be improved a lot, but I think this negative picture also has a lot to do with the trainers...

[aveslacker]

I agree that our scouting has been poor of late, but this article is absurd. Gabri started for two years. Rommedahl has been seeing a ton of minutes lately. Cvitanich has started often and played well. Sure, we need to not be so lazy when it comes to scouting, but the same holds true for the author of this piece - he shouldn't be so lazy when it comes to writing!

[SE6Ajacied]

I agree that our scouting has been poor of late, but this article is absurd. Gabri started for two years. Rommedahl has been seeing a ton of minutes lately. Cvitanich has started often and played well. Sure, we need to not be so lazy when it comes to scouting, but the same holds true for the author of this piece - he shouldn't be so lazy when it comes to writing!

Well I was too lazy to write anything last night when I first saw this thread but in any case, Aveslacker sums up my thoughts, especially regarding Gabri.