23 Nov 2008: AZ - Ajax

saddlerian · Bericht door **saddlerian** » zo nov 23, 2008 2:23 pm

Commentator says "a lacklustre Ajax"... have to agree...not the commitment of last week, especially after Enoh's booking!

MVB should have seen this.....thousands of others could......maybe we're wrong, but I'm confident that Gabri at Half Time would have made a difference!

Oh well.......Utrecht next week......3 points????

SE6Ajacied · Bericht door **SE6Ajacied** » zo nov 23, 2008 2:28 pm

SaddlerIan schreef:

Commentator says "a lacklustre Ajax"... have to agree...not the commitment of last week, especially after Enoh's booking!

Yup have to agree with that. I missed the end of the match but my 9 mth old daughter summed Ajax's performance up perfectly with something very unpleasant.....The 'pool lost too (just down the road from you Ian at Wolves) so not a good weekend!!

Over Pasanens Head · Bericht door **Over Pasanens Head** » zo nov 23, 2008 2:29 pm

Yet again too slow in thought and action - even before the snow. They just want to take too many touches which allows the opposition to re-group etc.

Blixt · Bericht door **Blixt** » zo nov 23, 2008 2:39 pm

Van basten schreef:
Van basten schreef:Sulejmani playing as no.10

But most strangely is that thei showed that Vertonghen playing as CB and Vermaelen as LB. I hope it's just a mistake
No, it's not a mistake! WTF?!

If you have seen the last games you would have seen that it has been this way before.. and succesfull..
BTW, i am a new here.. just wanted to give my input..

SPL · Bericht door **SPL** » zo nov 23, 2008 2:43 pm

I thought we were very poor and were very much 2nd best. The conditions in the second half were getting worse but Az still performed better.

When Gabri came on we then had him Enoh and Lindgren and we were 2-0 down. How can you win a game with 3 defensive midfielders. When I saw the squad last night my thoughts were we will only have 1 attacker on the subs bench Leonardo. Given that Schilder and Anita are also defensive midfielders how many more do we need!!!

I see Suarez limped off at the end.

Still we are right up there and surely we cannot play as poor again for along time.

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » zo nov 23, 2008 3:34 pm

I'm not as negative as most others.

Beforehand I expected a defeat, because we have had loads of injuries and AZ are quite simply the better team at the moment. Ajax have more individual class; AZ are the better footballing side, as a unit.

The first half was very balanced. I had no problems with the penalty call, but Ajax also had their chances (two massive ones for Suárez) and the half-time score could have been 1-1, or 0-1 without the penalty (it was fair enough, but not quite a '100% case').

In the second half AZ scored a brilliant goal (not really anybody's fault, simply a great goal) and then outplayed us for 15 minutes or so. In the latter 15 minutes Ajax increased the pressure and had loads of possession, but they hardly created anything.

Which made it a well-deserved win for AZ. We lost to a (slightly) better team. Difference in quality is not huge. This can happen. If we make no more mistakes until the winter break, we can look back at the first half of the season with satisfaction.

I will not slag Ajax off for this one. We are not a better side than AZ. They beat us at home; we might beat them at the ArenA. Who knows.

K.

Orange14 · Bericht door **Orange14** » zo nov 23, 2008 3:50 pm

Today's match was another example of the loss of Wesley Sneijder. Unitil we get someone to run the midfield these kinds of matches are going to be difficult. We simply do not have an offensive mid who can provide the danger that is needed. I don't know what MVB is going to do when the transfer window opens again in January. Everyone is talking about bringing in a defender but I'm not sure that's what the team needs. In fact our defense has shown to be much better than we all thought at the beginning of the season.

DanK · Bericht door **DanK** » zo nov 23, 2008 4:06 pm

Kowalczyk schreef:
I will not slag Ajax off for this one. We are not a better side than AZ. They beat us at home; we might beat them at the ArenA. Who knows.

K.

Nicely put Menno. AZ are the best side in Holland, we aren't. This isn't the worst result away with a few injuries, and poor conditions.

Thankfully NAC didn't get the 3 points.

3pts next week then...

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » zo nov 23, 2008 8:16 pm

Orange14 schreef:Today's match was another example of the loss of Wesley Sneijder. Unitil we get someone to run the midfield these kinds of matches are going to be difficult. We simply do not have an offensive mid who can provide the danger that is needed. I don't know what MVB is going to do when the transfer window opens again in January. Everyone is talking about bringing in a defender but I'm not sure that's what the team needs. In fact our defense has shown to be much better than we all thought at the beginning of the season.

I think that someone is supposed to be Aisatti.

Blind3 · Bericht door **Blind3** » ma nov 24, 2008 2:39 am

Not going to rag on Ajax. Crap result, but only one match. Put it in the rearview mirror and move on. Thursday and Sunday aren't far off.

Manneken Pis · Bericht door **Manneken Pis** » ma nov 24, 2008 10:01 am

The best team won, no complaints.

I'm also begining to lose patience with Suarez. I know the reason to have someone like him in the team is his unpredictability which unsettles defences, but he should try to link with team mates at least once per game. He seems to think he's in a frickin' circus...

The only other striking thing was when the conditions got worse Ajax really seemed to lose "heart", and AZ actually got better ... the test of a real team in my eyes. It will be tough wining the league against this lot.

Final point, what have the refs got against Sno????

gordonvandekamp · Bericht door **gordonvandekamp** » ma nov 24, 2008 4:29 pm

I agree the best team won, and I think it was going to be tough to win there no matter what, but the 2nd half conditions made it harder it seems. I think the penalty on Enoh as deserved (or at least should have been expected). He made a few bad challenges right before it happened and didn't pick up a card from any of them, so it seems his time was coming for that.

I pretty much agree with the sentiments of the others, we played well at times, crap at others and AZ has been the stronger side all season. The defense wasn't horrible, seemed to play about as well as they have in other recent games. I thought Urby looked good again and hope he stays out of our defense from now on. I thought Kennedy looked bad again (I would be picking Leonardo over him based on the last two games) and Gabri should have started. Suarez wasn't that good, but played as he has most of the season (moments of brilliance with intermittent sulking breaks). We're still near the top of the table, in the hunt, and pretty much in a better position than all the other likely challengers apart from AZ.

What showed most for me in this game is that we really have a hard time creating offensive opportunities some times (and it's not just because Huntelaar's out). It becomes a bigger problem when we fall behind like in this game. We really do seem to be missing the person who can move the ball forward, find the right people, and really create good scoring chances. Hopefully we can find that along with another quality defender or two and I'd feel very confident about pulling ahead in the 2nd half of the season.