16 JAN 2015 Ajax-Groningen Match Day 18

[Orange14]

A Friday fixture to begin the 2nd half of the season. Ajax dropped points at Groningen in the first round and need to take all three points as Feyenoord, Vitesse and AZ are the next three opponents on the schedule. Veltman is probably out with a hamstring injury. Fischer is still not ready to play and there is no transfer news about any of the other players.

[aveslacker]

Glad to have the winter break over!

[Tom_]

Me too. Friday game as well!

[SPL]

Sky showed some repeats of this seasons games this last week or 2 so call me sad but I watched Willem,Utrecht and Dordrecht again mainly as we scored a few goals in them . Clearly I need my Ajax fix.

[SPL]

Zivkovic is dropped for Sigthorsson and is back in Jong tomorrow v Telstar.Sorry its a joke he has outgrown Jupiler league. Well last season he was too good for Jupiler league.

Ligeon is dropped for Tete,at last. Tete is a RB but has played CD mainly this season for Jong and from the games I watched he looked as good as Ligeon and V d Hoorn.

[Dave the mac]

Alright then, winter break is over! I know the transfer window is still open for a couple weeks but seems it's been a very quiet one for Ajax. I didn't really feel that any new players were needed. I did expect a bit of internal change with Serero gone playing for SA and Moisander leaving...but neither happened! Glad to have Serero available but the Moisander/Denswil drama was weird and a bit of a mess. I really hope the Ajax captain plays much better than the first part of the season....Looks like the only real change will be vd Hoorn coming in to replace the injured Veltman, which I'm very okay with!! Funny how things work out.

There was an earlier post that Zivkovic will not be in the squad tomorrow, Sigi taking his place...I figured Sigi would be gone, but I guess he will be on the bench. Zivkovic must be disappointed - so am I - especially how Groningen is his old club. He's a real talent. The only real other question is who will play at LB. I thought Viergever played okay there but I'm okay with Riedewald playing there also, another up and coming talent.
Well comon Ajax, play well, score lots of goals and overtake PSV for another championship!

[SPL]

hope for a good win ,Riedewald at LB and Kishna starts.Sky sports 5 live again so I am being spoilt

[Orange14]

This appears to be a good source of streams: http://www.livefootballol.com/streaming/eredivisie/

[SPL]

Only 2 of us at present. I will keep in touch as I have my wife's googlechrome book handy.

[Orange14]

The Ziggo era has begun!!!

[Dave the mac]

Lot's of old friends playing for Groningen. I've always been a fan of their big CB Botteghin.

Love the starting time; it's 11:00 am here.

[Orange14]

Sweet goal from Kishna with a good pass from Schöne

[SPL]

beautiful goal from Kishna

[Tom_]

Nice way to start the year!

[Dave the mac]

Yes! After a really good start to the match we're up one to nothin'. Comon!

[Orange14]

Decent enough but really should have a 2nd goal given some of the very nice passing in the attacking third. van der Hoorn had a free header and perhaps could have done better. Keep the defense tight and get a 2nd goal is what's needed now.

[SPL]

playing nice football but we need a 2nd goal to steady things.

[Tom_]

Pretty good first half I thought. Schöne was excellent and Serero doing well too.

When he's fit again I'd like to see Fischer in Andersen's spot (or anyone other than Anderson, really ).

[Dave the mac]

Groningen is coming much more into the game this 2nd half. Could really use another goal.

[SPL]

Utter relief with an OG

[Tom_]

Andersen got the MoM in the ArenA? Well that's it, I officially know nothing about football. Unless it was meant to be ironic...

[Dave the mac]

[quote="Tom_"]Andersen got the MoM in the ArenA? Well that's it, I officially know nothing about football. Unless it was meant to be ironic...[/quote]

Yeah that's weird, though no one else really stood out...vd Hoorn maybe? The new Stam!

Groningen played well, that OG was fortunate...to say the least.
Great to see Ajax back in action!

[SPL]

a very poor 2nd half by us ,we were dead lucky.Riedewald and Bazoer both only just 18 looked great talents for the future

[Orange14]

Woeful second half but the clean sheet and own goal secure the three points. Some clinical finishing from Groningen would have made things interesting but they couldn't put much on frame at all. Cillessen seemed to be puzzled by the corner early in the second half and watched it go right behind him past the goal mouth, curious indeed.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen (6.5) - a couple of dicey moments but pretty solid
Riedewald (6.5) - generally solid performance before coming off early in the 2nd half
Mosander (7) - solid all match, let's hope it continues as we are thin on defense right now
van der Hoorn (7) - some good interventions to break up play and kept his position quite well
van der Wiel (6) - OK but not much better than that, very poor crosses when he had the chance
Serero (7) - very good with only a couple of exceptions late in the game, did well to break up plays
Andersen (6) - inconsistent all match with some wonderful and horrible plays alternating
Klaassen (6) - defended doggedly but that was it before coming off with a knock of some kind
Kishna (7) - great goal but had large stretches of the match when he was silent
Milik (5.5) - one swerving shot but didn't get the ball much at all or create much when he did
Schöne (7) - awareness to send Kishna in on goal and generally nice all around match
Viergever (7) - very good coming in at LB and his solid cross resulted in the own goal to secure the points
Bazoer (6.5) - decent enough in his second match in the midfield, played conservative and didn't turn the ball over
el Ghazi (6) - nice pass but Schöne was unfortunately a step off sides

Feyenoord up next at home and this team will have to play a lot better than they did today

[Orange14]

Andersen got the MoM in the ArenA? Well that's it, I officially know nothing about football. Unless it was meant to be ironic...

That's the fan vote on their phones I think. Terrible choice. For me Serero was the MOTM with all his interventions and good passing. I was going to give him a 7.5 but he had a couple of poor plays in the last 5 minutes to drop him down to a 7. As I noted Andersen was either brilliant or horrible, no consistency in his play at all.