24 JAN 2021; Fortuna Sittard - Ajax; Match Day 18

[Orange14]

Ajax begin the 2nd half of the Eredivisie season this Sunday with an away match against Fortuna Sittard. So far they have done well in January with the only dropped points in the draw to PSV. Yesterday's cup win was solid for the club and they played a lot better than the 0-1 scoreline. Let's hope ETH has more confidence in substitute players and does more squad rotation. There are still a lot of matches left to play in a congested fixture schedule. Good to see Neres back on the pitch if only for a half.

[GangstaRiB]

It has snowed in the province of Limburg, so I suspect that the pitch is going to be dreadful.

[Orange14]

Pitch looks OK but why has only one goal been scored? Both teams have had wonderful opportunities. I don't think the score line stays at 0-1.

[SPL]

A bit of luck with the goal but several efforts have ended with the goalie or over the bar. Haller needs to show why we paid 22m

[SPL]

Well that was hard going and hard watching.Happiest player today Alvarez as he could easily have broken his leg with that tackle near the end.

It was a poor performance and not sure we deserved 3 points , an OG and Haller just got his foot to score the 2nd. He should have scored way back early in the 1st half when he was one on one with the goalie. Our defence was asleep for their goal and Martinez and Alvarez coming on did make it harder for Sittard.

Chances were created but but we must kill off games like this early.

[GangstaRiB]

Another narrow escape.. can’t go further like this. We have to convert chances into goals. We played okay, certainly not great, but we created loads of chances in the first half. We have to kill these matches in an earlier stage.

[Orange14]

Both teams had scoring opportunities but the own goal and the nick in by Haller kept Ajax top of the table. Not many performances worth singling out in this game as Fortuna Sittard seemed to have the tactics just right to throw Ajax off their game.

Player Ratings:

Onana (6.5) - had one good save in the opening part of the match and everything afterwords was pretty routine
Tagliafico (6.5) - really moved the ball up the left side but the chances he created were not capitalized on
Blind (7) - another good match before coming off at the 70th minute
Schuurs (6.5) - decent enough
Mazraoui (6) - just above average and subbed off for Rensch
Klaassen (6.5) - solid match
Gravenberch (6.5) - good ball control once again
Labyad (6) - above average and nothing more
Tadic (5.5) - good on the ball but woeful finishing on three decent attempts
Haller (6) - had the match winner but maybe could have done better with the two good attempts in the first half
Antony (6) - sent a couple of decent crosses in but that was it
Rensch (5.5) - on for the final 30 minutes and was decent enough
Neres (5.5) - really should have done better when he had the ball with a 4 on 1 man advantage breakaway
Martinez (5.5) - on for Blind and was OK
Alavarez (5.5) - had a couple of good interventions and was really lucky not to have been seriously injured when he took a high kick to his knee late on
Promes (NR) - on late for Tadic

Another mid-week game; home to Willem II