Ajaxtalk

A Saturday evening match kicks off the first of four straight home matches for Ajax. They take on FC Twente who have on loan players Danilo and Kik Perie as well as former players Vaclav Cerny and Queesy Menig. In a week it is all to play for against Atalanta to see who goes forward in the CL and who is consigned to Thursday night football in the Europa League. Let us hope it is the former.

Ajax Showtime have a picture of David Neres wearing what looks like a walking boot. He has not had a full medical on the injury as the team spent the night in England. That it is a boot implies that it might not be his knee but it could be an ankle or foot bone injury. I hope it is mild!

Still no word on the injury to Neres other than he is out of today's match. According to the papers, Blind and Mazraoui are said to be rested with Martinez and Klaiber in the lineup on the back line with Tagliafico and Schuurs. Traore returns to the starting line up at striker flanked by Tadic and Antony.

we are trying to walk the ball into the net. have a feeling twenty will score a second

Ajax are playing really badly. But no strength in depth, imagine if Ajax didn't sell Noa Lang!

They look like they are just going through the motions and expect to win and get ready for Atalanta. If they play like this in mid-week it will be on to the Europa League.

thank god that promes just got substituted

yup twenty score a second. piss poor all over the place

Dreadful performance the space given for the 1st goal was woeful. Missed the 2nd goal,stream went down at the wrong time, but hard to believe Menig could do a worse job than Promes .

Too much space given in the middle again.

No question that all the fixtures caught up with Ajax today. Totally flat performance with a lot of poor passing. Ajax had 70% possession and lots of time in the attacking third but it was only a penalty call that led to the lone goal. Klaiber with some terrible defending against Menig who got the two Twente goals with good strikes. We'll see what happens in mid-week against Atalanta but if they come out like this, they will have a lot of trouble advancing. I guess this is the result of pandemic football with two games a week. Not much to write home about today.

Player Ratings:

Onana (6.5) - a couple of good saves and helpless on both goals
Tagliafico (6) - OK match before coming off with a knock to his face
Blind (6) - a couple of good interventions but several very bad passes
Schuurs (6.5) - decent enough before coming off for a rest
Klaiber (3.5) - quite bad everywhere
Klaassen (5) - poor passing and looked gassed in the 2nd half
Gravenberch (5.5) - we got used to some fine play; today was not that
Labyad (5.5) - poor ball control
Promes (5.5) - had a lot of the ball but didn't do much with it
Traore (5.5) - had some good hold up play but then suffered a muscle injury and came off
Tadic (6.5) - had some good interior play and cooly dispatched the PK
Brobbey (6.0) - worked really hard and had one difficult chance on goal
Matinez (6.0) - on for Tagliafico and was one of the few players whose passes were on target
Timber (5.5) - had a couple of last ditch interventions and one was because he was caught out of position
Antony (5) - didn't happen today
Huntelaar (NR) - on late in a last ditch effort to get the draw

On the subject of fixtures I hope for the cup game v Utrecht we play a mainly Jong Ajax side. Even if we get a fine we should not bother with that game or indeed the cup.

We have a few squad players who are not good enough and are now picking up injuries

Vitesse lost to Zwolle so Ajax are still in first place for another week.

Relief PEC won. Dutch guys on their section debating we rested players yesterday but with Neres injured and Mazraoui also injured the only 2 players on the bench worthy of starting were Martinez and Antony.

I dont think Labyad or Kleiber are good enough for Ajax and they are only Utrecht standard.Promes has been out of form this season and Traore is still only promising and not ready for our regular No 9 spot.

We dont have a strong enough squad as the rest of yesterdays subs were KJH now only a pinch hitter,Timber Brobbey Rensch all fine talents but not ready to play 2 x 90 mins every week, and Ekkelenkamp who is not good enough and needs a loan to get regular football.

Alvarez adds nothing and a poor signing.Even v Liverpool we would have been stronger with Martinez in CD and Blind as DM.

I thought Kik Perie had a good match yesterday for Twente. He showed by Ajax decided to keep him and let Botman go. Perie is very good with the ball which is important for Ajax central defenders. Let's hope this season at Twente can get him ready for next year. I'm not sure that Blind has more than a season left as a starter.

Just watched the highlights and as for their goals Kleiber really was terrible with both.Ok v VVV and Emmen but Twente are a bit better than those 2 .Hope Mazraoui stays fit when we play PSV,AZ,Feyenoord ,as I said yesterday Kleiber is Utrecht quality and not Ajax standard.