01 NOV 2019; PEC Zwolle - Ajax; Match Day 12

[Orange14]

Ajax have a rare Friday night match away in Zwolle. This will give them an extra day of rest before journeying to London to take on Chelsea in the CL group stage rematch. PEC sit in the bottom half of the table but every opponent get up for an Ajax visit.

Because stupid England have two Cup competitions, Chelsea have an extra match this week! Tomorrow they are home to ManU in the Carabao Cup and then on Saturday travel to bottom of the EPL Watford for a league match. It will be interesting to see how Lampard manages his team which has a number of players out with injuries.

[Orange14]

Menno Pot, aka Kowalczyk, has a new book out on Ajax. I don't know if it is available in English. Story is over on Ajax Showtime: https://www.ajaxshowtime.com/article/ho ... itgevonden

[SPL]

Looked it up its in Dutch only .Shame as he has written some good books on our club.

[kezme44]

shame indeed. however, i saw the cruijff biography the other day on amazon us and will be ordering it. has good reviews. actually, i just finished simon kuper's book "ajax, the dutch, the war" and found it a mixed bag. definitely some interesting chapters others were just meh

[Orange14]

Best book on Dutch football IMO is David Winner's "Brilliant Orange."

[Amol]

Starting 11 for tonight -
Onana, Mazraoui, Veltman, Blind, Tagliafico, Martínez, Van de Beek, Promes, Neres, Tadic en Ziyech

Varela, Scherpen, Schuurs, Álvarez, Huntelaar, De Jong, Marin, Labyad, Dest, Gravenberch en Traoré

Depending on where the score is at HT, I feel we might get to see Alvarez subbed for Nous. Alvarez to RCB and Veltman to RB.

[SPL]

Hope we find tonight easier than v RKC

[SPL]

Cannot believe what I am watching 3-0 up now 3-2 and looking 2nd best

[Amol]

This is terrible. I turned the game on after we were already up 3-0. It's been all downhill since.

Lost Martinez, Alvarez and Donny to injuries. Not good at all.

[SPL]

4-2 Neres utter relief

[SPL]

20 good minutes when we were 3-0 up and then all downhill until Neres got the 4th. Need to play a heck of a lot better v Chelsea otherwise they will murder us.

[Tom_]

That was a real scrap. Let’s hope Martinez is ok, I don’t like the idea of Alvarez as the only DMF against Chelsea!

[Orange14]

They need to rip up all this artificial surface in the Eredivisie and turn the stuff into soda bottles. all three Ajax MFs got subbed off in the match, two for injury and van de Beek as a precaution because he was carrying a YC. Very good play in the first 20 minutes of the match and on the final goal but lots of indifferent play in between. Very dicey defending by both full backs let PEC back in the match.

Player Ratings:

Onana (6) - OK match
Tagliafico (5.5) - some poor positioning on defense
Blind (7) - strong enough
Veltman (7) - good game
Mazraoui (5.5) - beaten badly several times
Martinez (6) - good until he had to come off
van de Beek (6) - not much of a factor and a silly YC
Ziyech (7.5) - didn't get on the scoreboard but his passing was first rate
Promes (7) - two well taken goals
Tadic (7) - some nifty footwork in the box
Neres (7) - good game and it looks like he is back in form
Alvarez (4.5) - poor on the 2nd goal and had to come off with an injury
Gravenberch (6) - had some good minutes
Marin (6) - good play coming on for the final 20 minutes

Chelsea coming up in London and we will need to see about how the injuries are.

[SPL]

Main thing we played poorly v RKC and most of tonight but still won both games.

Got a poor stream tonight kept freezing for a few seconds on and off but I followed and watched most of the game. Last 2 matches I got a Serbian stream which was very good but alas no Serbian tv tonight. Premier sports over here have Dutch rights but dont show the games live .

[souras84]

What's up with GravenberGch's name?? Was it a mistake on his shirt or is it the correct spelling?

[kezme44]

it was a spelling error. looks like vdb should be fit for the chelsea game

[Ayman]

it was a spelling error. looks like vdb should be fit for the chelsea game

And it looks like Martinez is ok, according to his instagram account.