19 Mar 2006: FC Groningen - Ajax

[Kowalczyk]

After the big one against Inter this will be the next league game.

It will be Ajax's first visit to Euroborg, Groningen's new home ground. The game is an important one: Groningen are direct competitors for the play-off qualification (alongside Utrecht and Heerenveen, whom Ajax already played twice). If we beat them, they're gone.

Juanfran will be suspended for this game due to accumulated yellow cards.

K.

[666]

The good news:

Left defender: Urby.

The bad news:

Left midfielder: Boukhari.

Juanfran will be suspended for this game due to accumulated yellow cards.

[dws]

The good news:

Left defender: Urby.

The bad news:

Left midfielder: Boukhari.

Juanfran will be suspended for this game due to accumulated yellow cards.

As long as Boukhari plays what is in front of him we will have nothing to worry about. If he keeps it simple, as in the game v's Sparta, he will give a decent performance.

[ajaxperu]

How serious is Urby's injury? will he make it to the game?

[Van der Vaart]

Good one...RroninRRum would be a big chance to we return to win

[Dubbel]

How serious is Urby's injury? will he make it to the game?

Urby nor JF are available for the Fc-G game. Do you think that Blind is the type of guy to ever solve a Rubik's Cube?

[Ayman]

I think Lindenburgh will play at left back, since he is the only one left to fulfil that vacant position, mind you we do have Vermaelen, but Heitinga and Grygera are still out injured, but what about the midfield????? Sneijder and Galasek are still out!!!!

Pienaar - Babel - Sarpong?

[carcajou]

I think Lindenburgh will play at left back, since he is the only one left to fulfil that vacant position, mind you we do have Vermaelen, but Heitinga and Grygera are still out injured, but what about the midfield????? Sneijder and Galasek are still out!!!!

Pienaar - Babel - Sarpong?

What about Juanfran?

[Kowalczyk]

What about Juanfran?

See first post: suspended due to accumulated yellow cards...

K.

[Feest]

Didn't he get injured by that criminal tackle from the middle line?

[Van der Vaart]

Anita is playing...OH MY GOD...he is very good...i cant see the game...how is he doing??

1-1 right now...

KLAAS JAN

[SPL]

1-0 down already.Does not look good as our team is

Steks,

Timisela Boayke Lindenbergh Vermaelen

Piennar Anita Bouhkari

Roasles KJH R osenberg

Subs Vonk Babel Charisteaus Schilder Sarpong

Anita is only 16 and I assume he is a defensive midfielder whereas Sarpong is attacking MF.


I do not know what is wrong with Maduro

[SPL]

I am too negative as KJH has equalised. If we can get some points out of this game it really will be a great performance.

[Tom_]

2-1 to Groningen.

Worse still Pienaar off 31'... not another fucking injury???

[SPL]

3-2 defeat and Vermaelen is sent off, so he will now be suspended.We need to get some fit players back.

[dws]

Poor passing and some very poor defending from Ajax.

Ajax defence at fault for the second and third Groningen goals.The second goal: defenders should have pushed up and played Groningen off side. The third goal: Timisela turned his back on van der Linden :pukey: allowing him a free shot at goal.

I didn't see the hand ball against Vermaelen so can't comment on that.

[Tom_]

Bad day for us, Utrecht and AZ both got 1-0 wins.

Anyone know what the deal is with Pienaar?

[ofey]

*slaps forehead in disbelief*

Back to zero... . Something puzzles me. In the case of any team even with many injuries shouldn't you try and retain as many people in their natural positions as possible? I'm not trained to a high level of football managing only to represent my country of birth up to U-14s but I remember even then we would have a first 11 and whenever players were injured, the coach would make as few changes as possible preferring to stick to a system (we played a 3-2-3-2 formation).

Back to Ajax's case today, why didn't we just keep all the players we had still in their natural positions, so the front 3 and midfield would have been the same as against Inter. The back 4 would have been significantly weaker yes but if we had played Schilder, Timisela, Vermaelen and Boakye, I'm sure the midfield and attack could have shielded them much better than seperating the youngsters out and requiring the senior players to do a job in more than on place... .

[DrDuncan]

Why the disbelief? Since the winter break we have only won one match against teams from the top half of the league.

[carcajou]

That's great.... :aai:

We need to field some twelve years old next time.

What a crap season, man what a crap season.

[bryan]

1-0 down already.Does not look good as our team is

Steks,

Timisela Boayke Lindenbergh Vermaelen

Piennar Anita Bouhkari

Roasles KJH R osenberg

Subs Vonk Babel Charisteaus Schilder Sarpong

Anita is only 16 and I assume he is a defensive midfielder whereas Sarpong is attacking MF.


I do not know what is wrong with Maduro

It's the most ridiculous Ajax lineup in years, possibly decades.

He could have put Pienaar on #10 and played Babel at right half. Hell, he could have even have put KJH at #10 and played Charisteas up front. With all these injuries it might be worth your while to have Charisteas on the pitch. Ok, KJH or Babel in midfield is far from perfect, but this Anita guy was not ready to be thrown to the lions like that. Credit to him that he made the most of his chance.

As for the defence: selling Escude is really starting to look like the dumbest decision in the history of football. And the few hundred thousand we got for Nigel doesn't look like it was worth it in retrospect.

What did Blind do? Draw straws for the lineup? That they managed to lose only 3-2 is a credit to the players.

We're really fucked. Ok, so we might scrape into the playoffs (scrape 5th place, fucking hell), but the chance of us winning them is virtually nil.

edit: ok, so I'm being a bit harsh, I'm just ticked off at the moment.

[saddlerian]

:headbang: :headbang:
Well. that's it now! I think I can book flights for the playoffs with a view to Wednesday being the home match -------- if we qualify!!!

Let's hope that nothing else goes wrong!!

Back to the Arena next week for 3 points,..... please!!

:xyxthumbs: :xyxthumbs:

(P.S. Shall I bring some of the kids from my class at school? They're 7-8 years old. That's old enough for Mr Blind to play them....isn't it??)

[ajaxperu]

this sucks. I was really surprised with the lineup. Did Anita fill in the position of Lindenbergh/Galasek? Because if he did that's just weird, I've seen him play for the dutch national team and he doesn't play there. So whats the news with Pienaar? It's just incredible how many injured players we've got this season, its like a curse :sad:
Anyway, it always sucks to lose but this game especially because they were direct rivals for the playoffs. Let's hope the injured players get back quickly, 2 important games are coming up next week. Hey but the positive thing about today is that Huntelaar scored again ;)

[Jinne]

1-0 down already.Does not look good as our team is

Steks,

Timisela Boayke Lindenbergh Vermaelen

Piennar Anita Bouhkari

Roasles KJH R osenberg

Subs Vonk Babel Charisteaus Schilder Sarpong

Anita is only 16 and I assume he is a defensive midfielder whereas Sarpong is attacking MF.


I do not know what is wrong with Maduro

It's the most ridiculous Ajax lineup in years, possibly decades.

He could have put Pienaar on #10 and played Babel at right half. Hell, he could have even have put KJH at #10 and played Charisteas up front. With all these injuries it might be worth your while to have Charisteas on the pitch. Ok, KJH or Babel in midfield is far from perfect, but this Anita guy was not ready to be thrown to the lions like that. Credit to him that he made the most of his chance.

As for the defence: selling Escude is really starting to look like the dumbest decision in the history of football. And the few hundred thousand we got for Nigel doesn't look like it was worth it in retrospect.

What did Blind do? Draw straws for the lineup? That they managed to lose only 3-2 is a credit to the players.

We're really fucked. Ok, so we might scrape into the playoffs (scrape 5th place, fucking hell), but the chance of us winning them is virtually nil.

edit: ok, so I'm being a bit harsh, I'm just ticked off at the moment.

A line-up with Babel as righthalf would be the dumbest line-up in ages to be honest not this one he started wiith today. I'm no fan of Blind, but I think the line-up he fielded was the most logical he could do. No need to put your best player at 10 in the name of Huntelaar for example or placing the Dutch Djibril Cisse at righthalf. Ok, you field a 16-year old then, but at least a guy who's familiar with the position.

[Kowalczyk]

Match report is up, folks...

http://www.ajax-usa.com/matches/m05-06/ ... n-3-2.html

K.