30 OCT 2024; Feyenoord - Ajax; Match Day 9 (rescheduled)

[Orange14]

This is the earliest Klassieker that I can remember. There is some question whether it will take place on Sunday as there may be a local police work stoppage on Sunday.

[SPL]

Game off ,without police the Ajax coach would never arrive safely.Even with a police back up we get rocks and bricks thrown by the sub human Feyenoord scum.

[Orange14]

Not great news on the rescheduling of the Klassieker. New date is Wednesday, October 30 and on Saturday, Ajax are home to PSV. It was difficult for the KNVB to find a new date given both sides are playing Euro football during the week. October 30 is open because of Beker Cup first round which both Ajax and Feyenoord are not involved.

[Orange14]

Bump to the top of the thread. It will be interesting to see how Faroli approaches his first Klassiker. Will he go back to a 4-3-3?

[Orange14]

One GK was close to perfect and the other was not as Ajax capitalized on two mistakes in the first half to win in Rotterdam 0-2. It was not pretty and at times Ajax looked more like a 1970s Italian club side playing catenaccio. Full credit to Pasveer, Sutalo and Baas for being so cool on the ball with short passes under pressure. Henderson dropped into the middle to take an occasional pass but did not keep the ball long passing to the open man. It was amazing to watch given the high risk of this approach but Ajax did not blink. Taylor's goal was the match winner but it would have been interesting if he had not gotten the chance to shoot and I'm sure that Makkelie would have had no alternative but to send Hwan off on a DOGSO leaving Feyenoord a man down with 84 minutes to play. Farioli knows his team's limitations and sets them up to win every match. It will be fun to see how he approaches PSV who have a number of starters out injured.

Player Ratings:

Pasveer (8) - MOTM for me with some critical saves and excellent play with the ball at his feet
Rensch (7) - had one dicey ball loss but was good otherwise
Sutalo (7) - great short passes and his one error did not make a difference
Baas (7) - same thing can be said as above for Sutalo, cool on the ball and delivered the right pass
Hato (6.5) - really struggled against the Feyenoord winger Osman, particularly in the first half and was much better in the second however he was so alert on the corner and put away the miscue for the insurance goal
Henderson (7.5) - just a rock at holding MF
Taylor (7) - solid game until he had to come off with a leg injury and his game winner was wonderull
Klaassen (7) - looked really slow out there but desire kept him running for all 90 minutes
Akpom (6) - worked hard and had a chance to set up a breakaway
Weghorst (6) - worked hard but there was no ball deliverd to him
Godts (7) - looked to be the most likely to get a scoring opportunity of the front three but his shots were a little tame and easily handled
Fitz-Jim (6.5) - on for an injured Taylor and was cool with the ball always passing before he got double teamed
Traore (6) - solid shift coming in for Godts and realized that ball possession was most important in the final 20 minutes
Brobbey (NR) - on for a tired Weghorst
Gaaei (NR) on for Akpom

PSB on the weekend and then home to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League. The matches just keep on coming!!!

[SPL]

My granddaughter came this afternoon and by the time she went I only caught the last 15mins. What a result and what a game I missed .Apart from Heracles our defence is now very tight and gives little away which one would expect from an Italian coach. 2nd place now and this give us confidence for PSV game .Someone has to beat them !

[SPL]

Stats wise we have only let in 11 goals in 18 games, NAC 2 and Heracles 3 so the other 16 games just 6 conceeded. Might not be playing the beautiful football of Ajax but we haven't got the quality of players for that type of football so 14 wins out of 18 games and a tight defence has taken us to 2nd place and a good position in Europe.

[Amol]

Saw the whole game and have been blown away by how professional we look in a matter of 3 months. Farioli has been amazing and I love his rotation system. Having 3 strikers doesn't seem like such a terrible idea anymore. I was wondering why we had Brobbey, Akpom and Wout at the same time, but now appreciate it 100%.

[Tom_]

They played a very disciplined second half. The commentator was also grumbling a bit about “Italian football”, but for me this was a very sensible approach to defending a 2-0 lead away from home against a good opponent. If 2018 Ajax did this maybe I would have been unhappy but this is an Ajax with basically no pace or creativity in attack so I think they did absolutely the right thing.