20 SEP 2015 Excelsior - Ajax Match Day 6

[Orange14]

Holding a narrow 1 point lead atop the Eredivisie club plays Excelsior who lie 14th. Given Ajax's ability to make any opponent look good this should be another tight contest.

[Cruijff]

Last year we did need a late goal by Mike van der Hoorn (and later the 0-2 scored by Zivkovic) to win this one....

[SPL]

Bazoer back in the squad Serero left out.Sanogo and Heits still out with minor injuries.

[SPL]

Good day to all. Bazoer for Sinkgraven and Milik for Younes are the only changes to Celtic starting lineup.I am on sky 2 today. ( I may hate sky giving the EPl millions of pounds but nearly every game of Ajax is live and when they aren't they are shown in full later)

[Tom_]

It will be good to have Bazoer back in MF. I don't think dropping Serero is a great call but we have lots of MF players and I guess it wouldn't look good to include him and leave out one of the new purchases.

[SPL]

Fword just drew 1-1 v Roda lets hope we get a win today

[rjf1]

Disappointed not to see Younes starting after the good game he had last time.

[Tom_]

Disappointed not to see Younes starting after the good game he had last time.

Me too. Would prefer Milik and Gudelj on bench and Younes at LW.

[SPL]

what a beautiful goal

[rjf1]

Finally! After half an hour of soporific lethargy, El G finally makes a good run at the defense and puts a nice shot into the net.

[SPL]

A good 2nd goal hope that should be it but our defence are subject to crap mistakes

[rjf1]

Rocket by Milik -- 2-0 -- announcers thought the goalie should have stopped it because he got a hand to it, but IMO there was so much power on the shot and the angle of the body meant that by the time the ball got to him he wasn't able to get the hand square to the line of flight and the ball ricocheted off his hand at an angle. IMO (having played a game or two in goal, myself), there was no way the goalie could have stopped that with one hand.

[Orange14]

Very nice first half. Decent ball movement in the midfield and two well taken goals. Bazoer rightfully should have opened the account early in the half but shot wildly which is not unusual for him. He really should get some shooting practice. 2-0 and Cillessen hardly challenged at all.

[Orange14]

Interesting that both Ajax goals were scored by players with their off foot, el Ghazi the left and Milik the right.

[SPL]

Well we won but not very inspiring play by us. In the 2nd half we were not very good and sloppy I thought Excelsior would pull 1 back and that might have woken us up

Still we did have a tough game v Celtic and we do have a very young squad.Fischer was not happy coming off but he is now getting 75 mins or so in a game and is looking better.

We are top and let in 2 goals in 6 games so cannot complain.

[Orange14]

Ajax managed to avoid the Thursday night hangover from EL play but the final ten minutes were really full of scramble football. By rights they should have done better at the offensive end as some chances were left on the table. Glad to see Fischer back at full speed and maybe it's good also to see him angry about being subbed off. Let's hope that he stays injury free.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen (6.5) - had nothing to do for 60 minutes and then needed to come up with a couple of good saves to keep a clean sheet; a bit undone by his defense that should have let some balls carry out
Dijks (6) - defended well but on the opportunities for a cross into the box, the quality was lacking
Riedewald (6) - some good interventions and a couple of silly plays particularly on the Yellow card
Veltman (7) - steady all match long
Tete (6.5) - two poor crosses were the only marks against him
Bazoer (5.5) - needed to put his chance in the goal; still concerned about him slowing the pace of the game up
Gudelj (6) - didn't need to defend much which was a good thing as he's shown he can't; decent enough in the midfield
Klaassen (6) - again lots of activity all over the field but didn't create a whole lot
Fischer (6.5) - good bring down and shot on goal early on, field awareness is improving with each match
Milik (7) - very nice match in all aspects, good goal and almost had a second when he chased the ball to the goal line and got off a stinging shot
el Ghazi (7) - nice goal with his left foot, he's avoiding double teams much more successfully
Schöne (5.5) - OK coming in for Fischer but had little of the ball
Sinkgraven (NR) - on late for el Ghazi and don't think he had more than a single touch of the ball

Cup match coming up in midweek against Grafschaap and then home to Groningen at the weekend.

[SPL]

fair ratings as usual

[Cruijff]

Yes, fair ratings.

[Amol]

My wife was confused when I told her in a fairly sad voice that Ajax won 2-0. I'll take the win since it was not even 48 hours since the Europa league game - but this was terrible to watch.

I worry about squad rotation these days, since Van Rhijn, Schone and Van Der Hoorn will want to leave pretty soon. I fear that De Boer will throw all of them in the cup game and we'll have broken the chemistry.

[rjf1]

We won the game, but aside from a couple of good moments, we did not play well at all. Passing (aside from the pitty pat ones), was sloppy; defense was like Swiss cheese on several occasions -- the fact that Ex. didn't score on 4 'sure' goal chances has to go down to dumb luck. If we play like this against the stronger teams, and they will eat us for lunch.

[SPL]

I too worry about squad rotation. Schone V Rhijn Serero and v d Hoorn wont want to be bench warmers and will leave either in January or next summer. We will have to use them as starters for some games this winter with 2 games a week.

The 6 games after the thursday night EL will all be hard work and the next one sees us in Turkey on Thurday and PSV on Sunday. If we play PSV like we did Excelsior today they will beat us no problem.

[Cruijff]

The 6 games after the thursday night EL will all be hard work and the next one sees us in Turkey on Thurday and PSV on Sunday. If we play PSV like we did Excelsior today they will beat us no problem.

If PSV plays us like they did Heracles Almelo yesterday night we will beat them no problem.

[Orange14]

Schöne should have started in midfield today instead of Guldelj. This is his best position right now.

[SPL]

Not been impressed with Gudelj so far .I also think Sinkgraven should be played in midfield ,his proper position,and not as winger.Mind Fischer would probably be best at no 10 as he is not a winger. We are a bit overloaded with midfielders.

I see Sheraldo Becker is playing well on loan at Zwolle.Scoring and assists. El Ghazi and Younes are our only wingers ,maybe we should have kept Becker but then again he is getting regular games at Zwolle which is better for his development.

[Tom_]

I guess I made my feelings on Gudelj clear...

I count 7 midfielders competing for 3 spots (Klaassen, Bazoer, Schöne, Serero, Gudelj, Sinkgraven and Fischer—based on their actual positions, not where FdB plays 'em) so it goes without saying someone has to miss out. I wonder if Sinkgraven could have used a season on loan somewhere? Anyway, if you rule him and Gudelj out (doesn't look good to drop your new purchases straight away!) I guess Serero is the only reasonable choice to leave out.

Armchair manager time: someone posted a wacky lineup last week, here's something we could try in MF and attack, assuming we have to stick to 4–3–3:

------------ Bazoer ---------------
------Fischer --- Serero/Schöne
El Ghazi---Klaassen---Younes (?)

Although if we drop the 4–3–3 requirement we could have a mobile front 2 of El Ghazi and Fischer and a four-man MF (Bazoer/Klaassen/Schöne/Sinkgraven?)

(I'm not 100% serious about any of that, btw)