Ajaxtalk

After a thrilling match with PSG it's back to Eredivisie action on Sunday against our arch-rivals. Will Ricardo Kishna make the match day squad? Will Zimling start in place of Viergever? Who starts as striker? Lots of interesting questions to ponder.

Kishna is in the selection in place of Schöne who is out injured.

So something like Andersen, el Ghazi and Kolbeinn/Milik up front, I guess? Wonder who will start in MF.

Opstelling Ajax | Cillessen; Van Rhijn, Veltman, Moisander, Boilesen; Klaassen, Zimling, Serero; El Ghazi, Sigthórsson, Andersen

Wissels | Boer, Van der Hoorn, Duarte, Kishna, Milik, Denswil, Viergever

Not surprised at all about Zimling gettng the start.

Neither, although I still wouldn't mind seeing a four man midfield one day

Cillessen better thank his crossbar!!

Vermeer's watchful game has hardly changed since he left Ajax!!! 0-1

BTW nice kick from van Rhijn

Wow, what a ridiculous start!

Haha, this is hysterical! We're not exactly in control, but sometimes you just have to love the eredivisie...

Don't think we have kept a clean sheet this season. Certainly would be suprising if we keep one today. Just constant pressure by Fword. We are losing every lose ball and can't put more than a couple of passes together.

Serero must have lost possession 20 times in the first half.....

Best player on the pitch: Cillessen's crossbar. Wow have we ever played a worse half? Just very poor football. Serero and Andersen have been particularly poor, no ball control, moving into dangerous situations and worthless passes. Moisander had a couple of bad positions and needs to sit down at some point.

We could easily have conceded 4 goals. FdB better get these guys ready for the second half!

King Litti schreef:... We are losing every lose ball and can't put more than a couple of passes together.

I don't think I saw even two passes together. We've got 11 guys running around like chickens with their heads cut off -- no sense of team strategy or team play -- all we are doing is (barely) responding to whatever the effers dictate. Could easily have been 5-1 by now. We are living on borrowed time.

Jezz, what an embarrassing half for Ajax. The defense is like keystone cops...

The only players who are doing anything worth writing home about are Veltman, van Rhijn and Zimling. Boilesen is decent and everyone else is just horrible.

Completely overrun in every part of the pitch. It looks like 7 vs. 10 or something.

Sigthorrsson is really really horrible

Why take of el Ghazi who is doing a good job and not Sigthorrsson?????

Boilesen is a total disaster -- just like in PSG he lets his man roll him at will -- how they didn't even the game on that one, only the heavens know.

Orange14 schreef:Why take of el Ghazi who is doing a good job and not Sigthorrsson?????

Because he is the only one on the team who stands up physically to the effers' bullying. I know you don't like him, I find him lacking in many ways, as well. But he played an important part in this game.

Time to complain again ;)

That was ridiculous. Do you guys ever remember us having less than 40% possession? Other than van Rhijn's free kick, our contribution to that match was booting the ball away from our box.

Talk about an ugly win.... Thank god we have Cillessen! Just ugly football.

It was crap but this is just priceless.
Almost better than a simple 0-4 win. Even when they are better we still win.

This has to be one of the ugliest wins I've seen from any team in the past 30 years. Totally outplayed in every single aspect of the game except on the scoreboard. Thanks to Vermeer's nice watchful goal keeping on van Rhijn's free kick we somehow manage to hold on for the remaining 70 minutes to squeeze this one out. Kudo's to the crossbar in the first half and to Veltman and Cillessen in the second half.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen's Crossbar (10) - stopped every single shot within reach; first perfect 10 of the season
Cillessen (8) - great positioning all match long especially when his team was turning the ball over so much two clutch saves down the stretch
Boilesen (6) - would have been a 7 except for letting his man blow by him on the goal line in extra time otherwise a good match
Moisander (6) - good down the stretch but again two troubling turnovers that for some reason were not punished
Veltman (8) - kept his head while most others were losing theirs
van Rhijn (7.5) - great free kick and along with el Ghazi neutralized Boietius
Zimling (6.5) - pretty good controlling things
Serero (3) - just horrible; too many turnovers and was fortunate that they didn't end up with scoring chances; totally lost his feet on the scoring chance late in the second half
Klaassen (5.5) - worked hard but nothing special about his performance otherwise
Andersen (3) - horrible and you could see by his expression when he came off that he knew that he put in a worthless shift; experiment is now over IMO and maybe he is just not good enough
Sigthorrsson (3) - poor ball control, maybe won a single ball in the air - typical Sigthorrsson match
el Ghazi (6.5) - didn't create much offensively but his tracking back on defense helped a lot - should have stayed on the pitch for the whole match
Viergever (6) - put in a good shift down the stretch coming on for Zimling
Duarte (5.5) - lost the ball on a couple of occasions but did OK otherwise
Kishna (5.5) - not on long enough to be anything than slightly above average

FdB really needs to rethink which players should be in the starting lineup. This kind of play cannot continue if this team has any aspirations other than to be just above average. We'll see who plays in the cup match midweek. Those players who cannot step up should be rethinking their chosen profession.