22 Sep 2013: PSV - Ajax

[Amol]

Depay slips and falls. Phew - that was definitely #5.

[Amol]

Vermeer needs to get benched. For his own sake.

[paladinby]

Goals number 2 and 3 came from lack of a defensive midfielder. The worst thing is that we didn't even try to sign one. Some things don't change under de Boer - no real defensive midfielder experiment which started with Jansen and now continues, some underperforming players are constantly fielded. I am not sure why Lodeiro was never given a chance and this dude Serero is playing.

[Tom_]

4–0... We made PSV look like Barça, haha.

[King Litti]

Problems all over. Terrible marking, passing and not enough movement.

What has hapened to Fischer?

Serero also invisible as usual. He didn't lose possession, but 90% of his passes are towards our own goal. He doesn't go for goal intensly enough. I definitely like Duarte more than Serero. Duarte brought at least some effort to score a goal.

And please FdB, play our center forward in the center.

[Amol]

Massacre! We need to get back to the drawing board. And we really need a defensive midfielder. I hate you Anita. I really do.

[SE6Ajacied]

Sod that - and the really sad thing is that I'll probably get offered a DVD of this crap later on from this guy I sometimes buy Ajax games from

[saddlerian]

2 matches, 8 goals conceded, 0 goals scored......what a record!!!! Let de Jong take over the Half Time talk at the next game....whatever FDB said.....it was WRONG!!!!!!

Total embarrassment!!!!

[Amol]

We have a strong tall center forward who is good at heading but we play him the RW. We play inverted forwards who can't cross to him.

We continue to play either a very old guy at DM or an attacking mf at DM.

Serrero is too light weight and all his passes are terrible.

De Jong needs to turn faster.

We bought a RB - but we're too afraid to play him in that spot.

Sometimes I really don't get Frank's masterplan.

Also are we saving all the money to go private again or to buy the Arena outright?

[Manneken Pis]

We got robbed by a team of chancers and street urchins living off the local council.

What do do expect if you have a rule about not spending more than peanuts on transfers, and all the rest has to come from the Toekomst? I hope everyone felt proud at the end of the transfer window about our philosophical position.

We played the dominating aggressive game that is in our DNA but....
A) had no creative inspiration needed in the last 3rd to make it work hence countless hitting of head against wall with massive % possession but few shots on goal.
B) had no defence because we sell them every year and replace them with kids or journeymen.

Hence 4-0.

I'll feel better in the morning ......

[SPL]

Ironically all the streams I tried started freezing for the middle part of the game and I ended up watching in Portuguese but it did not matter as that was sheer crap.

Vermeer cannot hold a ball and should not be in goal . Bojan was good in the first half and the other 2 Siggy and Fischer were they playing ! The defence was weak and the midfield I cannot say as we don't have one .Schone is not a holding player Serero is not remotely good enough and de Jong did little ,Duarte when he finally came on looked the best of them. Why Andersen and Hoesen did not come on after the hour mark must be a question for FDB.

I wont go overboard but from what I have seen this season Vermeer Serero and Fischer should not be playing and one or 2 others are lucky to be in the side.

The transfer policy must be questioned as Toby and Christian were always going to leave and we have have brought 2 fairly inexperienced players in V d Hoorn and Duarte. PSV have a youngish side but Rekik Wijnaldum and Maher all 3 young Dutch kids were not playing today and they had about 6 other Dutch kids in action. So much for us being the side of youth!

We have serious problems mainly we do not have a midfield plus we wont spend money and we have got plenty.

[saddlerian]

We have serious problems .

FULL STOP!!!!!!

[SPL]

You are righ Ian as we have a poor defence and a weak attack with no wingers.We really do have serious problems.

[Ayman]

Amol. A right back that ajax bought but afraid to use? You mean a centre back in van der hoorn

[Orange14]

To say that Ajax had a bad match today is to really be charitable. There are some players who put on the shirt today who ought to really be ashamed of themselves as they did not belong out on the pitch. PSV were no better than a schoolboy team in the first half. I guess this was part of Cocu's strategy: play rope-a-dope and lull Ajax into complacency. There were so many openings in the PSV defensive midfield that Ajax had no problem getting the ball deep into the attacking side of the field. Unfortunately, entry passes were too weak or players thought they learned a lot of tricks from Leo Messi on Wednesday night. They didn't. Nobody other than van Rhijn got a shot off with any authority to trouble Zoet.

FdB is facing a critical time right now as this season can go south in a hurry if he doesn't make some important decisions on who needs to play and who should sit.

Player ratings:

Vermeer (5) - only because he made some really good saves; first goal was his fault, if you aren't sure you can catch the ball punch it out! He wasn't helped by de Jong and van Rhijn who were playing rinky-dink with the ball rather than clearing it either up field or out of bounds; each turned it over
Blind (4.5) - average at best and his passes were too slow today
Denswil (6) - best player on the pitch today
Moisander (5.5) - second best player on the pitch today
van Rhijn (5) - some good moments balance off by some bad moments; had the only solid shot on goal which isn't saying much
Schöne (3.5) - said olé as Willems went right past him for a clean shot on Vermer, result 2-0 and match over, I know our players don't like to challenge an opponent but this was really beyond reality
de Jong (4) - he has to give up the captain's arm band to Moisander as he simply is just not very good; maybe he's not back to full fitness but he was another player whose passes were just lame
Serero (5) - tried to make the right pass but he is too light on the ball and easily dispossessed, he's the only midfielder with any quickness
Fischer (4.5) - quite poor and seemed to be pointing fingers near the end of the match, something a player should never do
Bojan (5.5) - did play hard but just can't seem to get his shot off quick enough
Sigthorsson (3) - he's not a winger and he's too slow to really do much when he plays in the middle; great idea - maybe he shouldn't play at all
Duarte (5) - had a couple of good moments but gave up the ball a little too cheaply
Andersen (NR) - I'm feeling charitable right now and won't rate him at all
Boilesen (NR) - came on late for Blind after the match was signed, sealed, and delivered

Of the starting 11 today the only ones who showed that they deserve a start in the next match are Denswil and Moisander; pretty embarrassing when your central defenders are the best players on the pitch. I would be quite happy if Schöne, Sigthorsson, and de Jong never get another start; they are undeserving.

[pizza 5]

Bloody Hell.....having made the trip to Barca to see us get totally outclassed as we all expected, I am really glad that I did not make the trip to Lightbulb city for this performance. We were really poor but I'm keeping calm, we cant be this bad again this season, FDB will get it sorted and we will get better as the season goes on. PSV are still a really poor side and will not be a serious threat to title number 4.

These pills I'm taking are pretty good....

[Cruijff]

Fucking Eindhoven... Frank is really to blame for this one in my opinion. What a terrible midfield with a not fully recovered Siem, Serero and Schöne. I can imagine the intention to let Serero use his technical skills in the nice space given in the Philips Stadion, but where were Poulsen and Duarte?

I was really looking forward to see Poulsen kicking Toivonen's ass again. Really a big tactical mistake this line-up...

[Orange14]

I was really looking forward to see Poulsen kicking Toivonen's ass again.

He can't play more than 90 minutes a week given his age. I suspect he would have taken Willems out unlike Schöne; it was a pretty easy tackle to make.

[Van basten]

What a shity day... Lithuania loses to France in the final of Eurobasket 2013.. and this..

[ajaxusa]

Hey guys. I turned it off after the 4th goal and had a lovely Sunday with my son, played a bit of golf, made a chicken pot pie. Sometimes, you just have to tell football to fuck off and go on with your life. Nobody died today. (At least not at this game.)

[Philippe]

We got robbed by a team of chancers and street urchins living off the local council.

What do do expect if you have a rule about not spending more than peanuts on transfers, and all the rest has to come from the Toekomst? I hope everyone felt proud at the end of the transfer window about our philosophical position.

We played the dominating aggressive game that is in our DNA but....
A) had no creative inspiration needed in the last 3rd to make it work hence countless hitting of head against wall with massive % possession but few shots on goal.
B) had no defence because we sell them every year and replace them with kids or journeymen.

Hence 4-0.

I'll feel better in the morning ......

Ajax played like amateurs yesterday, as Frank said after the game. Individual ratings are irrelevant as usual. We do have a situation with Vermeer these days, as well as with Sigthorsson (odd tactics to play him as a winger). But there was hardly anything positive. We controled the game in the first half but were totally unable to score.

[King Litti]

FdB really has some thinking to do. The problem is that seemingly there just isn't any good choises for the DMF position and the AMF is also a problem. Poulsen can't play two games a week and is too slow and Schöne is not a DMF, so what to do? Enoh? Bazoer? Can they be any worse? Well we've seen Enoh and at least he is tough. You can't get around him easily. Fdb has praised Bazoer as a great talent, so why don't we use him. it's not like FdB is afraid to use youngsters. There's a long way to go to the january transfer window, so FdB will have to come up with something.

What I could understand using google translate, FdB is starting to lose confidence in Vermeer. It's tricky. He is such a good shot stopper, but so shaky in dealing crosses. I thought it would have been something he could learn, but I see no development. He is as bad as he was when he took over the first choise goalie position. He is costing us too many goals and the thing is that it is very difficult for a defence to play wel, if they don't have faith in their goalie.

[kezme44]

good thing i spent the day on lake geneva, it was much prettier there than at this game.

not sure how criticial it was for eriksen to be sold. we didn't spend much and made all that money in the CL. it's the usual ajax way of selling on the last day and having no replacement. now we see there is little in the midfield in terms of creativity.

[SPL]

Back up what Litti says about Vermeer,I have no confidence in the guy and surely the time for Cillessen to have a run.Not sure 16 year old Bazoer is ready yet but Enoh ,whatever his limitations should now come into the squad.

If we have problems in midfield and these last 2 games I am not sure Siem was ready,then our attack is in crisis. Siggy is not
an Ajax player imo ,Fischer is suffering 2nd season blues and will come back but Bojan is starting to improve. Neither are wingers though and of the 3 spare forwards Sana ,the only winger is nothing special.Maybe Hoesen should get some playing time in place of Siggy but he does not impresse me and finally Andersen is not a winger and I am not sure where his best position is but he should be getting playing time as a sub and yesterday ought to have come on earlier.

Up front we lost wingers Lukoki Sulejmani Babel Cuenca and Boerrigter in the summer and have bought in just Bojan who is not a winger.Ok they were not great suffered injuries but we only thought about getting a winger in at the last minute ie Labyad John and Elia ,all abroad and not playing very specially.

The club's transfer policy must be questioned.I am all for youth but if its not ready you have to buy and when you buy we have to spend a bit more to get some decent players.We have no wingers ,only 1 DM ,bought a CB but decided he is not good enough to play ,and although I have not seen enough of Duarte he is not rated one of the best young Dutch MF.

Rant over. We are just 4 points behind PSV and good wins v Volendam and GAE in the next week should cheer us up.

[Tom_]

I dunno. I think Vermeer's catching, like his kicking, has come a long way in the last couple of years. It's easy to focus on his mistake, but what about the two consecutive giveaways next to our own corner flag that allowed Depay to get the cross in?

Our playing style is very prone to counter attacks when the ball is given away. Every team in the eredivisie knows this and will try to break quickly against us. The problem is that our midfield is coughing up the ball far too easily at the moment. Similar to the game against Barça, we lost possession too easily throughout the whole game but were only punished in the second half. I think PSV's first three goals all came immediately after turnovers?

I still think our midfield can do the job on attack but I agree that the lack of DMF and wingers is a worry. We've had an awful start, but no other team in the eredivisie is looking very good so far, and we have plenty of time to turn it around.