Ajaxtalk

Looks like we are not getting any help this week. Twente won another 1-0 match and PSV are comfortably ahead of AZ 0-2. Was Romero hurt in the friendly against Portugal? He's not in goal today against PSV.

Caught a small break today when Groningen drew with De Graafschaap.

Scary to think that we are in a struggle for third.

FC Twente have suspended defender Douglas for five matches and fined him for bad behavior. Probably means that US NT player Oneywu slots over to the central defense from left back but this will leave Twente very thin in reserves.

weren't we looking to sign Oneywu a while back? how did he wind up at Twente?

rjf1 schreef:weren't we looking to sign Oneywu a while back? how did he wind up at Twente?

He was hurt almost all last season and was just coming back into shape last fall. He wasn't getting any matches at Milan and they offered a loan deal to Twente which was accepted. I doubt that he will be returning to Milan but it's not clear where he will end up once the season is over.

Orange14 schreef:

rjf1 schreef:weren't we looking to sign Oneywu a while back? how did he wind up at Twente?

He was hurt almost all last season and was just coming back into shape last fall. He wasn't getting any matches at Milan and they offered a loan deal to Twente which was accepted. I doubt that he will be returning to Milan but it's not clear where he will end up once the season is over.

This puts me in a very difficult spot. I want Onyewu to play well, but I want Twente to lose. I suppose this means that other people give up the goals.

aveslacker schreef:

Orange14 schreef:

rjf1 schreef:weren't we looking to sign Oneywu a while back? how did he wind up at Twente?

He was hurt almost all last season and was just coming back into shape last fall. He wasn't getting any matches at Milan and they offered a loan deal to Twente which was accepted. I doubt that he will be returning to Milan but it's not clear where he will end up once the season is over.

This puts me in a very difficult spot. I want Onyewu to play well, but I want Twente to lose. I suppose this means that other people give up the goals.

Yeah! May favorite player Niki Mihaylov can do that!

See this: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... ts?cc=5901 about a link up between FC Twente and ManU regarding young players who don't qualify for a UK work permit. I'm not sure how I feel about this since we know that not all these players will make the main squad in Manchester and is this just a cheap way to evaluate talent. I don't think it is necessarily very good for Twente because it will send the wrong message to young players in their own system that the Brazilians will be favored above them. I certainly would not want to see this happen to our club.

Terrible result from the Grolsch Fortress. Can no longer overtake Twente by "simply" winning out, and I'm not sure I see PSV dropping 4 from their remaining 5. Nothing is definitive, but it's looking more and more like Ajax is heading for the "worst that can happen" league - at least according to our friend Arjen Robben.

It's quite simple, we'll win every remaining game and :
vr 22/4 Twente will lose 2 points in Den Haag (draw)
zo 24/4 fayenuts will beat Philips
zo 15/5 we'll beat Twente and get the title.

Any other way we're screwed.

philippe schreef:It's quite simple, we'll win every remaining game and :
vr 22/4 Twente will lose 2 points in Den Haag (draw)
zo 24/4 fayenuts will beat Philips
zo 15/5 we'll beat Twente and get the title.

Any other way we're screwed.

Not quite, PSV also have to drop some other points as I don't think we can overcome the goal differential which will decide a tiebreaker.

That's why I think that Philips will most likely end first, while we might catch up with Twente depending on the last game.

About the Europa League, I wonder what will be Philips and Twente's strategies. Will they save their energy for the Dutch home league ?

Twente are getting their clocks cleaned by Villareal 2-0. They are a step too slow for the Spanish side. Make that 3-0 after Wisgerhof gives the ball away in the box on a long throw in. Looks like lights out.

benfica - phllips 3-0
villareal - twente 4-0
Game over, nerds

Twente really got pasted and started their first team. They tried playing a three man back line which was an abject failure. It will be interesting to see what kind of team shows up this Sunday. I can't believe they will not rest certain starters on the rematch in Enschede; it will be hard coming back from a 5-1 deficit. Did not see the PSV match but they got thrashed as it looked like also. Portugal, 2-0-1 on the day, Spain 1-0-0

Yeah, i'll stop watching EL for this season. Cl too. If we don't beat Groningen on sunday, i'll stop watching any football Whitch is prety hard, given the fact i'm sports journalist

Bad news for two reasons. First, really want these two playing as many matches as possible down the stretch. While the fate of Ajax was in their hands until last week (if PSV had beaten Twente, Ajax could have won out to go 2nd), that is no longer the case and the top two will have to drop points elsewhere. Second, while most focus on this board has been directed towards what Ajax can do to consistently finish in the top two (ideally in the top one), there is another route to the CL, and that would be for the Netherlands to get a better country coefficient which would result in more CL spots. Netherlands was in the 8th spot for this season, it will be in the 10th spot for next season, and it looks like the poor results from this Europa round will have it be the 9th spot in 2012/13. Under the current UEFA structure, 6th gets you 3 CL spots (2 group, 1 qualifying), whereas 13th would see you lose the automatic group spot. Unfortunately things are heading in the wrong direction there as well.

#14 schreef:Bad news for two reasons. First, really want these two playing as many matches as possible down the stretch. While the fate of Ajax was in their hands until last week (if PSV had beaten Twente, Ajax could have won out to go 2nd), that is no longer the case and the top two will have to drop points elsewhere. Second, while most focus on this board has been directed towards what Ajax can do to consistently finish in the top two (ideally in the top one), there is another route to the CL, and that would be for the Netherlands to get a better country coefficient which would result in more CL spots. Netherlands was in the 8th spot for this season, it will be in the 10th spot for next season, and it looks like the poor results from this Europa round will have it be the 9th spot in 2012/13. Under the current UEFA structure, 6th gets you 3 CL spots (2 group, 1 qualifying), whereas 13th would see you lose the automatic group spot. Unfortunately things are heading in the wrong direction there as well.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... f2011.html shows us in sixth for the current season but we could drop to eighth depending on how Ukraine and Russia do. I see us hovering in this region for some time to come.

The table you've linked to is only the coefficients for this year. The actual ranking that determines CL spots spans over 5 years. That table can be found here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... k2011.html

#14 schreef:The table you've linked to is only the coefficients for this year. The actual ranking that determines CL spots spans over 5 years. That table can be found here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... k2011.html

Yes, I saw it and don't think that much will happen to change our current place. It was always going to be difficult to move up and I can't really see us moving down.

Philips and Twente have met their limits. They could be in shock and lose confidence ...

#14 schreef:Bad news for two reasons. First, really want these two playing as many matches as possible down the stretch. While the fate of Ajax was in their hands until last week (if PSV had beaten Twente, Ajax could have won out to go 2nd), that is no longer the case and the top two will have to drop points elsewhere. Second, while most focus on this board has been directed towards what Ajax can do to consistently finish in the top two (ideally in the top one), there is another route to the CL, and that would be for the Netherlands to get a better country coefficient which would result in more CL spots. Netherlands was in the 8th spot for this season, it will be in the 10th spot for next season, and it looks like the poor results from this Europa round will have it be the 9th spot in 2012/13. Under the current UEFA structure, 6th gets you 3 CL spots (2 group, 1 qualifying), whereas 13th would see you lose the automatic group spot. Unfortunately things are heading in the wrong direction there as well.

Actually, it was pretty good for was that Twente won against psv. Phillips has difficult program, and Twente's easy, They have 1 serious game - against us. So i don't expect them to drop point 'till the day 34. On the other hand, psv will loose some. The question is how many

Twente also have a tough game to play in Den Haag (22/04).