19 FEB 2015 Ajax - Legia Warsaw Europa League

[Orange14]

European adventures continue with a Thursday evening match against Legia. Interesting to see who FdB puts out there for the starting 11.

[Tom_]

Looking forward to it! Hopefully the result against Twente will give the kids some confidence we can enjoy a nice long run in the UEFA Cup!

[Orange14]

Selectie Ajax voor duel met Legia Warschau:

Jasper Cillessen
Ricardo van Rhijn
Niklas Moisander
Nicolai Boilesen
Mike van der Hoorn
Daley Sinkgraven
Davy Klaassen
Ricardo Kishna
Jairo Riedewald
Lucas Andersen
Arek Milik
Lasse Schöne
Anwar El Ghazi
Kenny Tete
Thulani Serero
Nick Viergever
Riechedly Bazoer
Richairo Zivkovic
Diederik Boer

[Cruijff]

Looking forward to it! Hopefully the result against Twente will give the kids some confidence we can enjoy a nice long run in the UEFA Cup!

Really looking forward to this one in Amsterdam Arena tonight with already 47.500 tickets sold and still counting as they will open the ticket office at the stadium in about an hour.

Would have been at least 3.000 or 4.000 spectators more if Polish supporters were allowed to come to Amsterdam which they are not.

[Orange14]

For those of us in the USA it looks like ESPN3 is carrying the match!

[SPL]

no sky for me so its a stream.

[Cruijff]

@ SPL: I expect this Dutch website to have a livestream without popups, malware and commercials as RTL7 is for tonight the official broadcaster: http://www.rtl.nl/uefa-europa-league/#!/

My prediction for tonight is a confident win: 3-0 or 3-1 for Ajax.

[Tom_]

It's free on rtl7.nl if you can get an NL IP.

Edit: er, yeah, what Cruijff said....

[SPL]

Wont work for me I have Google chrome and Internet explorer but it does not work on either.

team

Cillessen

V Rhijn,V d Hoorn Viegever,Boilesen

Bazoer,Serero,Klaassen

El Ghazi,Milik Kishna

Andersen left out the subs .No Moisander or Schone in the lineup.

[SPL]

livetv has a stream so will try them

[Orange14]

Boilesen is back in good graces and has the Captain's armband.

[Orange14]

Nicely taken by our Polish striker!!!

[SPL]

Beautiful goal by Milik

[Tom_]

Seems Legia have some enlightened tactics to go with their enlightened supporters. A good half from us I thought but we will have to take the few chances we get against an extremely defensive opposition, and hope we don't concede the traditional cheap penalty or red card that we usually give up in these matches.

PS I didn't know Henning Berg was their manager, there's a name from the past

[Orange14]

Well deserved lead at the half. What was Bazoer thinking at the end of the half by kicking the ball away. Silly Yellow card. Legia look a step too slow and I wonder if this is because of a prolonged winter break in Poland. We need to avoid giving up a silly goal and try to get 1=2 more.

[King Litti]

Decent half. Legia seems weaker than expected or are we really playing that well? Interesting choices from FdB. Schöne I guess needs a little reminder that his place in the line up is not for granted. And Moisander is leaving anyway so we might just well start to play him less and less. Why no Sinkgraven though? Isn't he supposed to be the next big thing for us? And he started well enough I thought.

[King Litti]

Jaasspeeer!

[Orange14]

Wow did Cillessen ever come up big on that play.

[King Litti]

Really need to start playing again. Cillessen can't keep bailing us out every time. Don't want to give that vital away goal to Legia.

[SPL]

our defence is poor dont rate any of the back 4

[Tom_]

What a disastrous second half! We could be 2 or 3 down

[SPL]

Very poor 2nd half, 2 goal attempts by Milik near the end and that was it,midfield did not create anything and we need a defence as Cillessen saved them.

Expect us to lose next week and we will be out. We should have lost tonight.

[souras84]

Where do I start. I'll try to be polite. Excuse me but many of our players are behaving like kids with special needs.

1. We cannot and I repeat cannot execute a decent throw in! It always seems as if our players are hiding.

2. Once the ball ends up to one of our 2 central defenders, most of our midfielders hide and then the ball goes long to our wingers. The rest is equally awful! The midfielders continue to hide an the wingers tries one on one and IF he manages something good, we might create a chance.

3. Absolutely no leadership in the defence, without Moisander. Viergever is trying and I feel he understands what's going on. Just clear the fucking ball. Don't pass and dribble... The other 3 just roam in our half waiting for the ball to clear itself. None is able to take initiative. NONE.

4. All of the above plus some attitude problems, lead to our inability to finish off the opponent. If we don't score a second we should be punished. Jasper saved our butts tonight. I always get the feeling that our players are hypnotized.

Sorry for the bad attitude and I hope I'm not the only one seeing these things. Maybe I'm not using the proper words, but I can't find the real reason behind our "moving around like 90 year old handicapped people" during the game

[Orange14]

A less than convincing 1-0 as the team lost defensive focus for large parts of the second half. Maybe it was because of all the position shifting but you should not have to rely on world class goal keeping against less than first rate opposition. Offensively did fair in getting the ball into the attacking third but other than Milik's goal, there were no real threats to score. The trip to Warsaw is going to be difficult in terms of keeping a result and Ajax will have to do much better on defense.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen (9.5) - saved everything, kicked well and distributed the ball; nothing more could be asked
Boilesen (5.5) - good going forward and seemed to hold his position OK, was a good outlet for passes
Viergever (5.5) - one really good intervention to prevent a shot on goal but poor positioning but then this was his first match of the season in central defense (I think)
van der Hoorn (6) - won every single intervention but caught in bad positions twice that I counted
van Rhijn (4.5) - seemed to be caught out of position way too much
Serero (5.5) - good first half and then was lost when the pressure was ramped up in the 2nd
Klaassen (5.5) - didn't see much of the ball at all
Bazoer (6.5) - very good with the ball but his two efforts on goal were poor
Kishna (6) - good pass to Milik but not much more than that
Milik (6) - scored when he needed to and maybe should have done better on the late weak header
el Ghazi (6.5) - created more danger than any of the other attackers
Riedewald (5.5) - didn't steel things up as much as he needed to as a DM
Schöne (5.5) - on late for Kishna and didn't concede the ball which was a plus
Sinkgraven (5.5) - some nice touches of the ball which created some offense

On the road Sunday and let's hope that some goals can be scored.

[Orange14]

I forgot to mention earlier. Moisander is carrying a Yellow card and probably was being rested for the return leg. The point that Souras makes about the midfield is one that continues to plague the team. Everyone stands around waiting rather than moving into space. el Ghazi and Kishna are the only two players who try to attack defenders; sometimes this gets them into trouble but today they were good about passing the ball out of danger when facing a double team.