21 FEB 2016 Ajax - Excelsior Match Day 24

[SPL]

We played better today with 4 in midfield but Excelsior were as poor a side as I have seen and next week its AZ and that will be tough.Think Muric and Younes on the wings will create more as El Ghazi and to an extent Fischer just want to shoot and not pass.

[Orange14]

Excelsior never threatened to score as Cillessen only had one semi-difficult shot to save. Two really nice goals by Milik and he also had a deft pass back to Muric to set up the Birthday Boy's goal at the end of the match in what was his best match of the year. The 3-4-3 certainly helped in adding a man to the under-performing midfield but it really did little to address the fundamental problem of lack of movement and passing speed. No real chances created though the club had immense amounts of possession in the first half.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen (6.5) - hardly troubled at all
Dijks (6) - did well on what little defending was required and otherwise camped out in the offensive end
Viergever (6) - can't point to anything he did either well or poorly as the center man in the 3-4-3
Veltman (6) - pretty much the same as Viergever, with this opposition as long as you don't fall asleep on the pitch you perform above average
Mr. Irreplaceable (5.5) - some really poor passing in the first half but did better in the second
€50M Man (6) - much better match and he never overlooked any opportunity to take a shot on goal; unfortunately he was often way off the frame
Klaassen (6.5) - constantly making himself available in front of goal and finally rewarded by Muric otherwise pretty static performance
Schöne (6) - just a bit above average and had little impact on the game
Younes (6) - one really nice shot that was well saved but he's turning into a bit of a one trick pony; works against poor opposition and fails against good teams
Milik (7.5) - two excellent goals and great assist on the third one, very good ball possession in this game even though he wasn't helped much by the midfield
el Ghazi (6) - a couple of chances to score but didn't and 2-3 nice crosses that were not converted
van Rhijn (6) - had one good defensive play to make and made it, whipped a great cross into the box that was just narrowly missed
Fischer (5.5) - losing out to Younes must affect him but he needs to screw his head on and make smarter plays rather than trying to pretend to be Neymar
Murcic (6) - great debut in assisting on the Klaassen goal

Very tough match against AZ next weekend as the Alkmaar team have won all their matches since the break. Ajax still in the position of having to win out. PSV are home to ADO after their CL match against Athletico Madrid. Will they suffer the hangover of having to play CL football? Doubtful, but one never knows.

[Ayman]

I told you it would be easy. Now someone has to replace Gudelj for the next game against AZ. They have decent striker who has a habit of scoring goals, Vincent Jansen, tipped for a move to PSV Eindhoven next season.

[SPL]

Agree Gudelj is just poor adds nothing to our team.Jansen of course was at Almere last year but came from Fword youth so doubt he would come to us.

[Orange14]

I told you it would be easy. Now someone has to replace Gudelj for the next game against AZ. They have decent striker who has a habit of scoring goals, Vincent Jansen, tipped for a move to PSV Eindhoven next season.

Replace Mr. Irreplaceable? That will happen when pigs fly. For some reason unknown to me he is a favorite of FdB and those were his words not mine.

[Tom_]

My only explanation for Gudelj being in the squad is that dropping him would be an admission from FdB that he was a terrible buy. It seems like we only bought him because he scored a few free kicks last season—if that's true, someone needs to explain probability to Overmars and de Boer. Other than shooting free kicks into the wall his biggest contribution is fouling the opposition so that they can have a go too.

I see Feyenoord snatched their 2nd point in 9 games today. Obviously it's us or PSV this season. Unfortunately, at this stage the consensus is PSV, and if you watch their games they play like they think so too...

[Philippe]

Beating the best club from Rotterdam.

[Orange14]

My only explanation for Gudelj being in the squad is that dropping him would be an admission from FdB that he was a terrible buy. It seems like we only bought him because he scored a few free kicks last season—if that's true, someone needs to explain probability to Overmars and de Boer. Other than shooting free kicks into the wall his biggest contribution is fouling the opposition so that they can have a go too.

In my mind he's a younger Theo Jansen with good knees!!