29 NOV 2015 PEC Zwolle - Ajax Match Day 14

[Orange14]

This could be a tricky fixture after play in Glasgow on Thursday night. Ron Jans always has his club ready to play Ajax and has had success, particularly in Cup matches.

[SPL]

El Ghazi Bazoer and Serero may well be fit .Hope for the first 2 but I dont rate Serero and v d Beek should now be in the squad before him. If El Ghazi returns then Cerny will be dropped !!

[SPL]

Serero is fit and back but more importantly Veltman is fit .Bazoer,El Ghazi,and Sinkgraven the 3 out injured. Cerny and v d Beek stay in the 18 man squad.

Heits and V Rhijn are dropped,(Onana also out but he wasn't a sub at Celtic)

[Orange14]

Heits and V Rhijn are dropped,(Onana also out but he wasn't a sub at Celtic)

van Rhijn will need some match time as Tete is suspended for the Molde match. Weird decision by FdB not to have him on the bench.

[SPL]

Donny v d Beek starts and not Serero joy of joys

Cillessen

Tete,Veltman,Riedewald,Dijks

v d Beek, Klaassen,Gudelj

Fischer,Milik, Younes

Its live here but cricfreetv has streams.It has a sky sports 5 stream if anyone interested.

[rjf1]

How did Younes miss that?

[rjf1]

Finally! Younes redeems himself. Goalie loses the flight of the ball in the wind and Younes is there to pounce.

[Orange14]

Should really be 0-3 at least. Younes and Fischer missing some great chances. I don't like the field conditions as it leads to sloppy goals and Ajax are masters at conceding some ridiculous ones. A one goal lead is not safe at this point. Klaassen's touch is appalling as he had two good chances to send players through and couldn't do it. Gudelj is decent in the holding role. Tete seemed to zone out on a couple of occasions conceding too much space on his side. Veltman is rock steady and Dijks had a couple of nice crosses.

Let's get a goal or two early on and put this one to bed.

[SPL]

Younes's goal made up for his earlier miss but Fischer must have had about 5 chances,will he ever put the ball in the net. This looks like the type of game when we will fail to score a 2nd,which would probably win it, and give away another silly goal.

v d Beek doing ok so far,he has seen alot more of the ball than Klaassen

[rjf1]

Cerny comes on for Younes. Personally, I would have taken Fischer off, instead. Aside from all the missed goals, his touch has been poor and his passing not much better.

[rjf1]

After some slow slogging in the second half, Serero scores on a nice pass from Schone (two late subs) in the 86th minute. That should be that.

[SPL]

Hard going in the 2nd half until a nice bit of work by Schone saw Serero win it Zwolle were much better in the 2 nd half but created little.I just hoped we were not going to make a silly error and let a goal in.

[Orange14]

0-2 win on a wind swept day in Zwolle. Ajax kept their poise on defense thanks to some very good play from Veltman and Riedewald in the middle to keep a clean sheet. 2nd goal from the most unlikely player on the pitch, Serero who might want to give Fischer some lessons in how to finish. The team was definitely a step too slow because of the trip to Glasgow for the Thursday night Europa League match.

Player Ratings:

Cillessen (6) - only one semi-tough save on the free kick but otherwise untroubled though he did have to do too much kicking into the wind during the 2nd half
Dijks (5) - nice first half but teetered on the edge when Becker came on for Zwolle in the 2nd and Dijks could not defend him at all
Riedewald (7) - some silly fouls but tough in the center when he needed to be
Veltman (8) - not a single bad play all match long and cleared any ball that came near him in the box
Tete (6) - again some poor positioning at times during the match
Gudelj (7) - pretty solid match as the holding midfielder
van de Beek (6.5) - needs to be a little stronger on the ball but not too shabby in his league debut
Klaassen (6) - much better 2nd half after some very poor touches in the first
Fischer (3.5) - forwards get paid to finish, Fischer did not earn his paycheck today
Milik (5) - average and no better
Younes (6) - kept his eye on the ball on the cross from Dijks to get the first goal but missed the easy chance earlier
Cerny (6) - lively coming on for Younes and tracked back on defense well unlike Younes
Schöne (6.5) - some wonderful touches coming on late
Serero (6) - put away the goal that sealed the deal

Home to Herenveen next weekend.

[SPL]

Should add after loads of chances to finish it in the 1st half we did struggle in the 2nd but this is the type of game and situation where you have to battle and hold on for a win and we did that very well. Last season we would have drawn this game .

v d Beek had a good game and at 18 can only improve .Delighted for Serero to score and he works hard but with Bazoer coming back surely v d Beek has to be ahead of Serero in the pecking order.

[rjf1]

Hard going in the 2nd half until a nice bit of work by Schone saw Serero win it Zwolle were much better in the 2 nd half but created little.I just hoped we were not going to make a silly error and let a goal in.

With the change of ends, Zwolle was able to enjoy the field position advantage that we had in the first half. Which leads me to believe that there must have been a big influence by the wind that affected the relative field positions that we saw between the first and second halves -- the first half playing with it, the second half playing against it.

[SPL]

Fair comment about the wind ,commentator did make an issue about the strong wind.