28 Sep 2010: Ajax - AC Milan

[Orange14]

One of the things I enjoy is the reactions of the players immediately after the final whistle has blown. Unfortunately, they tend not to show much of this on the television but it was nice of Zlatan to exchange shirts with El Hamdaoui. I don't know if any of the other players did this, maybe some of those at the match would know.

[aveslacker]

Enoh was my man of the match, he just concentrates on doing the simple things well. He gets the ball off the opposition and gives a simple pass to one of his (relatively) more creative team mates. He reminds me of a young Claude Makelele.

Every team needs an Enoh.

Unfortunately, every team also needs a creative midfielder, and (with the possible exception of Lodeiro) we don't appear to have one of those.

I was impressed with Enoh's bite, but I think that he was a big reason why, after we scored, we got kind of sloppy. It seemed like he was immediately looking to play everything back to Steks, even though there were still 60 minutes left in the game. I would have liked to see him look forward more.

[Orange14]

Enoh was my man of the match, he just concentrates on doing the simple things well. He gets the ball off the opposition and gives a simple pass to one of his (relatively) more creative team mates. He reminds me of a young Claude Makelele.

Every team needs an Enoh.

Unfortunately, every team also needs a creative midfielder, and (with the possible exception of Lodeiro) we don't appear to have one of those.

I was impressed with Enoh's bite, but I think that he was a big reason why, after we scored, we got kind of sloppy. It seemed like he was immediately looking to play everything back to Steks, even though there were still 60 minutes left in the game. I would have liked to see him look forward more.

I think that this is an accurate assessment of Enoh and it's one of the problems in terms of mounting an attack from the back. We tend to rely on long kicks from our keeper rather than a quick build up to the midfield. We just don't have the type of midfielders who can successfully create. There is a good analysis of the match from Zonal Marking: http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/09/29/ ... n-tactics/ and they emphasize the problem that we have had with the high defensive line both in the Twente match and again yesterday that resulted in goals.

[Amol]

Before the game started, I was worried about playing the defense very high. It kind of worked though, because they were only able to create two chances because of our line.

The goal which they scored was when Anita was out injured after being kicked at by Zambrotta(who didn't even get a card for that). On the same play, De Jong forgot to mark Pirlo.

Oh well, all is not lost yet. We need to take care of business home and away at Auxerre now and hope that Milan get trounced by Madrid in both their games.

[Manneken Pis]

Couple of observations...

Steks really is world class these days.
Suarez is confirmed as world class.
El Hamdaoui finally showed his class.
Enoh's impact was enormous.
The defence were mostly solid and sometimes very lucky.
De Jonge isn't good enough for this level (maybe it's his youth).
De Zeuw continues to be hot/cold this year.
Zlatan's goal was offside.
Milan were very sluggish.
Milan were very dirty.
Great to see the crowd's reaction at Seedorf's subsitution.
Didn't see the crowd's reaction to Zlatan (at the start or end) but hope it was similar.

[Manneken Pis]

As always, excellent match report from Zonal Marking;

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/09/29/ ... n-tactics/