Ajaxtalk

According to FCUpdate.nl, Henk ten Cate has announced that he will reveal on 18 May for which club he'll be working next season. That is the day after the Champions League final between Arsenal and Ten Cate's current employer, FC Barcelona.

K.

It seems to me that Menno is a big fan of Henk ten Cate......midn you ten Cate does have his critics, some people are saying he is good as an assistant coach, but not a head coach, the worrying thing is that the current board and the t/d Martin van Geel, may want to see the back of Danny Blind, although it would be a big decision (if he wins the Gatorade cup and the play offs) to sack him, after all the players are behind him, the fans are behind him, I honestly dont know what to think, although a change might be nice.

Ayman schreef:after all the players are behind him, the fans are behind him

Not all the players are behind him and not definitely not all the fans are behind him (staying).

We need a new coach, since the games have been shite this season. No matter if we win the Gay-to-rate Cup and the Play-Offs.

Ayman schreef: after all the players are behind him, the fans are behind him, I honestly dont know what to think, although a change might be nice.

If we win both the playoffs and the cup, it will prove that Blind is working in the right direction; let's wait and see

(last time I witnessed a scene like that with the players movingly going to the coach after their goal was when Wouters was about to be fired)

Nice of Ten Cate to announce he will wait until 18 May.Why say anything more than "NO COMMENT"? 17 more days of speculation. Yes I'm biased,but I would only wish the kind of crap swirling around Danny Blind on my worst enemy.

I think its quiet clear....I mean it was not the current board who appointed Blind. You really do get the feeling its mere consolation for Blind if and when he wins the play offs and the Gatorade cup. Its really sad if you ask me, but its for the best. Atleast Blind can go out with his head held high. As I said before a change is always nice especially after a season like this. Im looking forward to next season already, especially the Johan Cruijff shield and the qualifying phase of the champions league, I hope we get Hearts, they are piss easy.

Ayman schreef:I hope we get Hearts, they are piss easy.

Aye and look what happened the last time we got an easy Scottish club in the qualifying phase of the Champions League - we lost, so think it is a bit rich calling anybody piss easy.

And Hearts have not qualified for the Champions League yet, and neither have Ajax now that I come to think of it.

Wish people on this board would actually remember that we do have a 2nd leg to play tomorrow night and concentrate on that instead of looking foward to a competition we are not yet in.

jamcocteau said:

[/quote]Aye and look what happened the last time we got an easy Scottish club in the qualifying phase of the Champions League - we lost, so think it is a bit rich calling anybody piss easy.

And Hearts have not qualified for the Champions League yet, and neither have Ajax now that I come to think of it.

Wish people on this board would actually remember that we do have a 2nd leg to play tomorrow night and concentrate on that instead of looking foward to a competition we are not yet in.

We will eat Groningen tommorrow and.............the last time we had a Scottish team, Co Adriaanse was screwing us up with his 3-3-4 formation.

Ayman schreef:j

We will eat Groningen tommorrow and.............the last time we had a Scottish team, Co Adriaanse was screwing us up with his 3-3-4 formation.

[/quote]

Whether Co screwed up or not, the fact was the Scottish team won.

jamcocteau schreef:

Ayman schreef:I hope we get Hearts, they are piss easy.

Aye and look what happened the last time we got an easy Scottish club in the qualifying phase of the Champions League - we lost, so think it is a bit rich calling anybody piss easy.

And Hearts have not qualified for the Champions League yet, and neither have Ajax now that I come to think of it.

Wish people on this board would actually remember that we do have a 2nd leg to play tomorrow night and concentrate on that instead of looking foward to a competition we are not yet in.

Oh come on jamcocteau... What can happen now? Nothing. We're qualified for some CL action, and we'll win this qualifier and play the Champions League next year. MARK MY WORDS.

jamcocteau schreef:

Ayman schreef:j

We will eat Groningen tommorrow and.............the last time we had a Scottish team, Co Adriaanse was screwing us up with his 3-3-4 formation.

Whether Co screwed up or not, the fact was the Scottish team won.[/quote]

And that scottish team was by no means an easy team with the like's of Larsson,Hartson,Valgaren,Sutton etc.

carcajou schreef:Oh come on jamcocteau... What can happen now? Nothing. We're qualified for some CL action, and we'll win this qualifier and play the Champions League next year. MARK MY WORDS.

If we let one in early we might actually f*ck it up.

This Ajax team can do that. Believe me.

(but things are looking quite good for now, obviously)

K.

carcajou schreef:
Oh come on jamcocteau... What can happen now? Nothing. We're qualified for some CL action, and we'll win this qualifier and play the Champions League next year. MARK MY WORDS.

There is an old saying, dont know if you have it in France, that goes

Dont count your chickens before they hatch

That is all I am trying to say - wait until after the game tomorrow and then talk off the CL qualifying rounds.

Well, we have that kind of expression :
"Ne pas vendre la peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tuer", which means something like : don't sell the bear' skin before you killed it.

Sure, my compatriot are a bit over optimistic...
I hope they're right though. ;)

Hearts piss easy X'D

Hearts stuffed Celtic 3:0 at the weekend.:yes: .... Aye, they're piss easy.

As to Co screwing up V's Celtic. Was it not errors from Grim and Chivu that resulted in Ajax giving up a couple of soft goals?

To dws




Celtic are already champions, had this been the decider, I gaurantee you Celtic would have taken it seriously. All I know is that Ajax will be in the champions league, and unfortunatly we will be in the third seed, not second because we were last in the second seed this season, but Valencia are in the champions league so we will be third seeds. Im hoping for a group like Real Madrid, FC Porto and Basel.[/quote]

Ayman, Celtic take every game seriously. :yes:

I get the impression you don't take Scottish football seriously.

Rangers, Celtic and Hearts are of a similar standard to the top four in Eredivisie; Hibs could be compared to Utrecht and Groningen.

The top flight in Scotland isn't nearly as bad as the English media would have you believe.

Boys, this is the Ajax Coaches thread. The discussion has developed into a very interesting one on Scottish football, but this is not the appropriate place...

Follow me to the General Football Discussion thread and I'll reply to what's been said so far...

http://www.ajaxtalk.nl/portal/viewtopic.php?t=4422

In this thread: Ajax coaches! Danny Blind has now admitted that he think he will be fired. "There are many signals. For example: the directors don't discuss certain things with me anymore. I know enough."

He just said this on TV.

K.

Minimum requirements for the next coach : better performance than Blind
1- giving a beating to feyen@dr
2- decent performance in the CL
3- qualifying for the next CL
4- winning the Cup (to be confirmed)

All this by playing attacking football with wingers.

Easy.

so I guess it's time for this Henk guy; tell us more about your idol Ko. Before he has time to complain about the squad (not the players he would have chosen and so on).

philippe schreef:Minimum requirements for the next coach : better performance than Blind
1- giving a beating to feyen@dr
2- decent performance in the CL
3- qualifying for the next CL
4- winning the Cup (to be confirmed)

All this by playing attacking football with wingers.

Very funny, but - thank God - that's not how it works. Games against Feyenoord or knock-out competitions like the Gatorade Cup are 'one-off' events, depending on the team's form of the day, good luck/bad luck, etc. These games as such will not tell you whether the head-coach has done a good job over the whole season, or not.

Besides... (commenting on three of your points)

Ad. 1: Danny Blind's Ajax gave Feyenoord a beating in the play-offs, but lost twice to them in the league.
Ad. 2: A decent performance in the CL...??? Ajax's play was terrible as usual, and they made it through the group phase becuse the CL equivalents of RKC Waalwijk and Willem II were in our group...
Ad. 3: Danny Blind's Ajax would have finished 4th in any other season than this season. The fact that the KNVB came up with something silly (the play-offs) does not change that.

The requirements Henk ten Cate has to meet are:

1. playing higher quality football than Danny Blind's Ajax
2. making more progress with the team over the course of a season than Danny Blind
3. finish 1st or 2nd in the Eredivisie

As for Champions League and other knock-out competitions (such as the play-offs and/or the knock-out stages of UEFA competitions): I want Ajax to do well and I would be quite pissed off if they f*ck up really badly against a team with a lower UEFA coefficient than Ajax, but a reasonable analysis of a head-coach may never not be based on knock-out competitions or competitions where your chances depend on a draw. That would be a bit opportunistic. The work of a coach with the available players, the football he's played and the progress he's made needs to be analyzed and evaluated in a thorough, rational and reasonable way.

I'll give you a specific example, though: if Ajax bump into Brøndby in the CL qualifiers I feel that Henk ten Cate's Ajax should qualify. It would be piss-poor if they didn't. Also, if they end up in a group with FC Thun, Sparta Prague and Arsenal, I definitely feel that Ten Cate's Ajax should advance, and that they should look considerably better against Thun and Prague than they did under Danny Blind, while booking at least the same results against them. I will demand that from him, for sure.

In a group with Juventus, Bayern Munich and Maccabi Tel-Aviv it would all be a bit different, obviously, but in that specific group I would demand better results and much better football from Henk ten Cate's Ajax than when Ronald Koeman's Ajax played the same sides.

K.

Kowalczyk schreef: I'll give you a specific example, though: if Ajax bump into Brøndby in the CL qualifiers I feel that Henk ten Cate's Ajax should qualify. It would be piss-poor if they didn't. Also, if they end up in a group with FC Thun, Sparta Prague and Arsenal, I definitely feel that Ten Cate's Ajax should advance, and that they should look considerably better against Thun and Prague than they did under Danny Blind, while booking at least the same results against them. I will demand that from him, for sure.
.

K.

Who was it who said:

"...He was all too right: Ajax played one of their best European games of the past 24 months or so, played the Czech hosts off the park in the first half ..."

Frans schreef:Who was it who said:

"...He was all too right: Ajax played one of their best European games of the past 24 months or so, played the Czech hosts off the park in the first half ..."

I take it that's from the match report of Sparta Prague away...? Yes, Ajax played extremely well over there. That's why I was so disappointed that it all fell apart after that. But there were two Sparta Prague games. The Thun games and Sparta Prague at home, were nothing special. Quite poor to extremely poor, I would say.

But what's your point anyway? Is this your way of saying that you disagree, or that my post (which is quite comprehensive and reasonable) makes no sense?

K.

I was just pointing out it wasn't all bad in the champions league, where your post inferred in that instance that Ajax were always poor against Thun and Prague, which they may have been at times, but they had their moments as well.

That's not to say i disagree with the underlying point of your post. In fact, on the whole I probably agree with it.

Personally, I don't care if Blind gets another season, or if someone else gets the job. I can see the merits of both situations. But what happens if Ten Cate gets the job, and has an average-bad first season? Does he then get sacked and a new coach brought in? In the end someone has to be given the chance to build a team over 2 or 3 years, and the fans may have to accept a bad season while things get going.

Of course, Blind appeared to be headed in the right direction at the start of the season, and as you say, that's why it hurt all the more when it turned to custard. Who knows what might have been if Ajax had put in a couple of goals when they were playing well.

Kowalczyk schreef: Ad. 2: A decent performance in the CL...??? Ajax's play was terrible as usual, and they made it through the group phase becuse the CL equivalents of RKC Waalwijk and Willem II were in our group...
K.

of course, we were lucky with the sides in our group, but it is totally untrue that Ajax play was terrible. Altough we missed many players on those accasions, we had good games against Prague, Arsenal, and Inter (home).

Its not finishing 4th that annoyed me but it was the WAY we finished 4th.

If we had to be truthful, it could have been worse. We could have dropped more points against so many teams this year (Vitesse home - AZ home for example). Then there were the games that on paper we did well (our 6-0 win during the season etc), yet the score really lied on these games.

Sure we ended up beating feyenoord well (although I am still not 100% convinced we PLAYED well in these games) in the playoffs and we may now qualify for the CL, but for me, this has been our worst season I can remember.

I want us to start playing well again. I am sick of watching us play and be bored. I know the guys have it in them (our wonderful goal against feyenoord is a perfect example), but its just not being shown enough. I don't know if its confidence, and sure injuries haven't helped, but surely some of the blame has to come from the coaching staff.

I have full faith that it will get better (it always does), but I just pray to god that it happens sooner rather than later whoever is in charge.