General Football Discussion

[kezme44]

ok - FC Midtjylland!

[Amol]

Phew FC Midtylland

[Orange14]

If we keep Tagliafico and Onana we can WIN this group!!

[kezme44]

not too terrible, could have been much worse (groups B, E, and H look far worst imo). atalanta are beatable, midtjylland as well. i think we can get out of this group. of course, who knows what will happen with covid. we might see a tournament in the bubble...

[Ayman]

not too terrible, could have been much worse (groups B, E, and H look far worst imo). atalanta are beatable, midtjylland as well. i think we can get out of this group. of course, who knows what will happen with covid. we might see a tournament in the bubble...

Atalanta have kept most of their key players and beat Lazio 4-1, of course domestic form doesn't necessarily translate into CL form, but it's going to be tough.

[Orange14]

It also quite likely we will play at Anfield with no supporters singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone." That is a big plus!

[kezme44]

not too terrible, could have been much worse (groups B, E, and H look far worst imo). atalanta are beatable, midtjylland as well. i think we can get out of this group. of course, who knows what will happen with covid. we might see a tournament in the bubble...

Atalanta have kept most of their key players and beat Lazio 4-1, of course domestic form doesn't necessarily translate into CL form, but it's going to be tough.

agree, they score a lot of goals but their defense is not great. they definitely don't play the italian football that ajax doesn't do well against. i think it'll be two very close games with lots of goals.

[Amol]

Back to Europa League Qualifying and there's some good news for the Dutch co-efficient.

PSV won their game against Rosenborg and are now through. One Belgian team (Charleroi) got eliminated by a Polish side and the other one - Standard Liege are currently down 0-1 at home to a Hungarian side.

This is great news as Belgium sits just above the Netherlands in the country co-efficients.

[Amol]

Standard Liege managed to win their game 3-1.

Milan on the other hand are down 2-1 in OT. One of the clubs I have always had a soft spot for - in total disarray

[Ayman]

It gets better doesn't it? First Promes arrested for stabbing incident, then Brobbey rejects a new contract past the transfer deadline. Then a technical error meant Haller can't play in the Europa league, and now Onana suspended for 12 months. Looks like his career is in crisis, as the world cup is looming in 18 months. I wonder what tomorrow will bring us

[Amol]

I'm not going to sit here and think about what other bad news can come out in February for Ajax. Too scared for that now.

[Orange14]

wow, what a week for Ajax news!!!!

[Amol]

The positives I'm still clutching to are - we have completed a lot of the difficult Eredivisie games in January. We're still 7 points ahead. We can hopefully continue to do decent and win the league.

Europa League games against Lille are going to be almost impossible to win. Will need a small miracle now.

Lets look at what Liverpool is going through with injuries and are still doing ok. Hup Ajax!!!

[Manneken Pis]

It gets better doesn't it? First Promes arrested for stabbing incident, then Brobbey rejects a new contract past the transfer deadline. Then a technical error meant Haller can't play in the Europa league, and now Onana suspended for 12 months. Looks like his career is in crisis, as the world cup is looming in 18 months. I wonder what tomorrow will bring us

You forgot to mention that 16 year old, highly regarded, Julian Rijkhoff is off to Dortmund.
Will we ever see another home grown top class striker???

[Amol]

It gets better doesn't it? First Promes arrested for stabbing incident, then Brobbey rejects a new contract past the transfer deadline. Then a technical error meant Haller can't play in the Europa league, and now Onana suspended for 12 months. Looks like his career is in crisis, as the world cup is looming in 18 months. I wonder what tomorrow will bring us

You forgot to mention that 16 year old, highly regarded, Julian Rijkhoff is off to Dortmund.
Will we ever see another home grown top class striker???

That too yeah - aaarrrgggh.

[kezme44]

what an absolute disaster of a week. the haller issue to me is the least important one. we were going to lose to lille even with him. I’m so convinced of this that I’m not even going to renew my cbs all access pass to watch the games.
the onana thing is potentially catastrophic. he’s saved us time and again. after his suspension he has half a year on his contract. the club needs to think what to do. since this is a uefa suspension, can he still play in China? Or does this roll up into a fifa suspension as well?
regarding brobbey, that little unthankful cunt can go. dump him from jong ajax as well so he can sit at home and play fifa for rb leipzig. he’ll never make it.

[SPL]

Ajax at fault with Haller's registration and not sorting out a contract with Rijkhoff.

Being 16 last month Ajax seemed to stop talking to him since last October even though they can contract 15 year olds now. Overmars has cocked up with this lad and can only hope he pulls his finger out and gets the other lads, born in 2005 ,signed before they too go to Germany.

the other 3 cockups not Ajax fault

Brobbey would have stayed with any other agent .We offered him good money but talk of Raiola wanting 3m for him to extend,so Ajax not really to blame.

Promes a complete mess up.S.Moscow may not even take him on loan. Ajax should have just said you stay for the season but the Russians evidently were prepared to sign him thus Ajax correctly took Idrissi.

Onana , well from what I read Ajax hoped for a lighter sentence but he took a banned substance and could have got 4 years ban.
A leading sports lawyer saying no way would he have got away without a long ban. The lawyer says there is nil hope of it being reduced by CAS.

Ajax could have got a decent goalie on loan last week but hoping for the best we now have Steks who has played little league footy for years.Scherpen is ok for Jong but not for Eredivisie and Kotarski is poor.

What a shambolic mess.

[Orange14]

Has anyone else wondered why UEFA issued the Onana ban after the transfer window closed? They knew about the drug test for a while and could have issued the ban in January allowing Ajax a chance to bring in another keeper.

[Amol]

Has anyone else wondered why UEFA issued the Onana ban after the transfer window closed? They knew about the drug test for a while and could have issued the ban in January allowing Ajax a chance to bring in another keeper.

I've been wondering about the same thing. It's like they not only wanted to punish Onana, but also Ajax.

[Manneken Pis]

Has anyone else wondered why UEFA issued the Onana ban after the transfer window closed? They knew about the drug test for a while and could have issued the ban in January allowing Ajax a chance to bring in another keeper.

I've been wondering about the same thing. It's like they not only wanted to punish Onana, but also Ajax.

De Telegraaf says today that he found out about the failed drug test just before the Liverpool game where he made the blunder to let them score. They say that it meant he was uncharacteristically distracted.

[SPL]

5 problems listed above but also a 6th howler Lang initially wanted to be loaned out. ETH did not want him so Brugge get him for 6m. Reading about him today and Brugge say he could be sold this summer as his value is going to be 25m plus!

I am not sure anyone thought Lang would make such a big impression or Botman at Lille. Meanwhile we pay nearly 5m for Kleiber and 3 months later 2 teenage Cd's are used above him.

[Orange14]

After Bayern dispense with Lazio today, there will not be any Italian teams left in the Champ[ions League. I know Ajax struggled against Atalanta (should have won the away match) but does anyone think they are deserving of four teams going straight into the group phase next season. I'm getting tired of the Juventus owner Andrea Agnelli talking about how the CL needs to be reformed, in part so the "big" clubs continue to get their payday. This is everything that is wrong with Euro football.

[Ayman]

I am not sure anyone thought Lang would make such a big impression or Botman at Lille. Meanwhile we pay nearly 5m for Kleiber and 3 months later 2 teenage Cd's are used above him.

Soon to be three, incoming Quentin Timber

[souras84]

So the whole BeNeLiga conversation is heating up!!! If it happens it could end our Dutch monarchy before it even begins. Thoughts?

[Orange14]

I posted the following on another forum in response to a thread regarding reorganization of the Champions League format. I still think this is a good approach.

There have been several articles about this "new" format for the CL. IMO it will be a disaster for European football as it will just create a league of the haves with every other team on the outside looking in. UEFA really have to consider what is good for football across all the FAs and the competition should encourage and give hope to all leagues. I would fix the CL as follows:

* continue the current group stage of eight groups of four teams
* top 12 UEFA FAs by ranking are guaranteed a spot in the group stage for the league champion and this will be reset every year
continue to allow multiple entries into the CL for top ranked FAs as is now the case, but...
* allow only two teams from any one league an automatic spot in the group stage based on progression to the quarter finals of the previous year's CL (next year Italy would only get one automatic place in the group stage, Germany 2, England 2 and so on for the other quarterfinal leagues)
* all other league champions and additional teams from top ranked FAs will be required to go through qualification rounds
* set up four knock out qualification rounds with seeding but make it more difficult for the 4th place team in these FAs so that they have to play a minimum of two rounds

This would maintain the integrity of the FAs and make the CL a much more interesting competition since there would be more opportunities for an exciting knock out competition in the beginning. Ajax went through three rounds of qualification back in 2018-19, so it can be done. Why not force underperforming Juventus to do the same thing?