23 Jan 2011: FC Utrecht - Ajax

[rjf1]

We are really lucky that Asare isn't any better than he is -- otherwise he would have had 3 all by himself already.

[souras84]

ozbiliz on for cvitanich?

[rjf1]

Looked like Cvit injured his foot.

[souras84]

omg vdw is still playing like crap

[Orange14]

Stekelenberg really deserves better defending than this. Lights are out for today. We knew de Boer could not go undefeated but this match is really quite shocking. Some players really need to take a hard look in the mirror.

[rjf1]

Just when they were playing pretty decently -- now this.

[souras84]

no passion, no heart, no understanding of the club they are playing for

[Kowalczyk]

Quite.

Not much to say, I guess.

K.

[SPL]

very poor although we were slightly better in the 2nd ( well we couldn't be worse) VdW was crap,if Man City want to give us 20m euros for him let them.How much longer do we have to put up with Enoh , imo he has been below par all season.Apart from being bundled off the ball which gave away the 3rd he did nothing.
Blind looks ok and you have to remember he played as a central defender in all the Jong games up to christmas so that is only his 2nd game as a left back .

[SPL]

Just to add 14 out of our squad came through the youth system but to add insult Ismo Vorstermans
who scored their 3rd was from our academy, both he and the big lad who came on Attilla Yildrim were only A2 youths for us but 2 years down the line are making it in the Utrecht team.

Kevin Strootman looked good ,they have just picked him up from Sparta .I think he was MOM.

[bryan]

Hello Frank, welcome to reality.

[Orange14]

Was van Wolfswinkel injured? I see that he was not even in the Utrecht matchday lineup. I echo what others have already said and would add de Zeeuw to the group who had an absolutely execrable match. If Blind is going to be our left fullback it's time for Anita to get a start in the midfield to see what he can do. van der Wiel isn't going anywhere soon (if at all). All of his flaws were on display today, poor coverage, only able to play the ball with his right foot, too slow to react on both offense and defense. The other appalling thing was our lack of physical presence. We were pushed off the ball consistently by Utrecht. One way to solve that problem is to be quicker with our passes but that didn't happen.

Since we may lose Suarez and El Hamdaoui is missing in action I can't see this team moving up much beyond where we stand right now. I do think de Boer is the right manager at this point and his commitment to the Ajax academy products is laudable. Even after the clean out of useless players we are not going to have much in the way of extra €€s to purchase anyone with a price tag above €5 M, if that.

[Mr_Holte]

Not blaming the youth in anyway, but at the moment I just feel we lack the experience to steady the ship when needs be. It's obvious there is no attacking threat. PSV winning 3-0, title over now.

[Philippe]

It hurts. Could understand lack of striking power, because Luis and El Hamdaoui are unavailable. But this ... no.

[kezme44]

wow. what happened?

[Cedric]

Nothing, as far as Ajax are concerned.

[Philippe]

From the official site : “During the break, I asked the players if the match was too early for them. It looked like a few of them were still asleep”, said Frank de Boer afterwards, who admitted to having fully lost his temper during the break. And rightfully so.

[Orange14]

From the official site : “During the break, I asked the players if the match was too early for them. It looked like a few of them were still asleep”, said Frank de Boer afterwards, who admitted to having fully lost his temper during the break. And rightfully so.

He was quite candid and refreshing in contrast to Martin Jol in this regard. I also liked his other comment, "This is a good learning process for our young team. Getting here is ‘easy’ for young players, but staying is much harder. That was clear this afternoon. They can’t always play a 6,5. A few of them played a 4 this afternoon. And then, against Utrecht at the top of their game, you fall flat on your face.” (numbers referring to the 1-10 game scale evaluation; Stekelenberg is probably the only player deserving of a '7')

[GangstaRiB]

From the official site : “During the break, I asked the players if the match was too early for them. It looked like a few of them were still asleep”, said Frank de Boer afterwards, who admitted to having fully lost his temper during the break. And rightfully so.

He was quite candid and refreshing in contrast to Martin Jol in this regard. I also liked his other comment, "This is a good learning process for our young team. Getting here is ‘easy’ for young players, but staying is much harder. That was clear this afternoon. They can’t always play a 6,5. A few of them played a 4 this afternoon. And then, against Utrecht at the top of their game, you fall flat on your face.” (numbers referring to the 1-10 game scale evaluation; Stekelenberg is probably the only player deserving of a '7')

Mmm... To be honest... this little story has already been told by numerous coaches in the past, like Van Basten and Ten Cate.

Ajax played bad against Utrecht. Sure, Utrecht-away is always difficult, but this defeat was an eye-opener. And I hope that De Boer also had an eye-opener because he must realize that a couple of players are not ready yet to play on this level and that you can't win the championship with a youth squad like it is now.