22 OCT Fenerbahce - Ajax Europa League Group Play

[Orange14]

Matches start coming fast and furious once again. Off to Turkey for Thursday night football against a Fenerbahce team that has really disappointed so far in the EL. Will they find form and dispatch Ajax? A point is certainly needed in this match and preferably a win if possible. Cillessen is expected to play in goal and it's important for the defense stand big.

[SPL]

Cillessen is fit but Milik ,Serero and Sanogo are still out.

[Cruijff]

I expect a draw. That will be our 3th draw in a row in the Europa League (4th if you also count the away game against Jablonec).

But a draw would mean we will have still a point more than Fenerbahce and two home games in the last three matches plus an away game in Glasgow. In my opinion we should be able to win the away game against Celtic.

[Orange14]

I have some appointments on Thursday and will miss the match (maybe this will bring the team good luck) so no player ratings from me. Don't know if I'll be able to find a replay on line.

[SPL]

Cillessen for Boer and V Rhijn for Tete the only changes from Saturdays starters. Should find a stream on cricfree.tv

Have to say this competion does not over excite me , having failed to beat Celtic at home we have got to do something special to get through . Maybe my mind is focused on the dreadful news of JC.

[SPL]

cricfreetv has a streams.Click BT Europe it is very clear at present.

[SPL]

Not a bad half by us, theTurks dont look that good.I can still see us sneaking a 1-0 win.

[Orange14]

Just got back home and saw that we conceded on a ping pong goal from a corner. I guess with Molde winning big over Celtic puts them in the driver's seat. It will be difficult for us to progress unless we win big in the return match against Fenerbahce.

[SPL]

Well we contained well and played decent for 89 mins then a mistake by Dijks to give away the first corner lead to their goal.We never looked like scoring but should have held on for a point. We have to win our 2 home games and get a draw v Celtic but at this moment I feel we are headed out.

We could have pushed forward a lot more but our attack was pretty nondescript and for the last 15 mins we infact had only Younes as a proper forward.

[Tom_]

Only saw the last 15 so I can't comment on the game. Still on track to finish last in the group.

[Manneken Pis]

Ajax were crap.
Opposition were crap.
Referee was crap.
Late goal was crap.

All in all a crap evening.

[Rooie]

Can't complain about the result. Created zero chances, boring play ágain. The worst thing is that I ain't bothered by this result. The less games, the better...

[Tom_]

Yes, it's all quite uninspiring these days. It's a bit sad really.

[Orange14]

Until FdB decides to leave we will continue to get more of the same. I wonder if the governing board has enough courage to sack him in December. Martin Jol's teams at least were interesting to watch.

[Philippe]

We missed Milik badly.
But our midfield and defense looked good.
My prediction : we'll go through (draw Fenerbhace, win/Celtic, win/Molde, with Molde getting not more than 1 point in the remaining games).

[Rooie]

I envy your optimism. We have a tough month coming up and I don't see this Ajax picking up the results. Boring, predictable, tempo-less play has been haunting us for over 2 years now. Self-confidence will plummet. The constant mutations in the starting 11 don't help either.

I think you overestimate the impact of Milik. It would've still been the same sterile play. To be honest I think Frank wouldn't have let him play, even if he would have been totally fit.

[Philippe]

By the way, I just watched the video over and over again. It seems that Dijks was right. There shouldn't have been a corner kick in the first place.

[SPL]

Catching up with the comments I agree it was a boring game and neither side looked like scoring.Commentator picked up on Dijks and thought he made a mistake in letting the ball go over.

The defence and midfield had good games but we had no attack. Surely Milik would have done nothing as he would have had nil service!

Biggest disappointment is this group is weak and we should be beating Molde and Celtic.I know Dutch football is going down hill at present but its surely stronger than Norway or the one team Scottish league.Fenerbache looked just as poor.

Our hugh problem is youth and lack of experience and poor record in the transfer market.We should never have been ko by Vienna.

Given the amount of games coming up I dont see us qualifying.Vitesse,Fword twice ,both in de Kuip,will be tough.We are playing with kids and can they handle so many games . Against PSV and in Europe they have struggled.

[Dave the mac]

Well...that was always going to be a difficult game...but to loose like that was horrible.
And to play Schone as CF? wtf? Might as well play vd Hoorn at #9. Drop the out of form Klaassen and play Schone there.

Really disappointed. Like everyone else.

[SPL]

Looking at UEFA coefficient tables and the future for Dutch clubs look bleak. The points at the end of this season will decide 2017/18 places. We need to be in the top 15 to maintain 2 CL places ,and in fact top 12 for the champions to be automatically in the group stages(no 13 to 15 the champs to be in 3rd round qualifiers with all the runners up)
16th and below ONE CL team and they start in 2nd qualifying round.


At the end of this season points from 2011/12 onwards count and I believe we are now 16th . Given Austria and Norway are not far below and they have Rapid Vienna and Molde doing very well we could indeed be down to 1 CL spot in 2017/18

de Boer says this young group will be ready to challenge in Europe by 2018 but most will be gone and if they are still here we will be facing 6 games to get to the CL proper and thats if we are champs.

He and Overmars have filled our side with young kids and inexperienced players who at present cannot compete with other teams in Europe. Its not helping the Dutch cause .

[Tom_]

What do you guys who have been watching Ajax since the '70s think about all this? Has there been a time when things have looked worse for Dutch football, when you consider the level of play in the eredivisie, the national 11 not qualified for the Euros, clubs not performing in UEFA comps, etc.?

[Orange14]

@Tom - the base problem began after the Bosman ruling. Dutch clubs could no longer retain key players for lengthy periods of time. Look how fast the last Ajax CL winners dissolved. Within 3-4 years those who started against Milan were pretty much all gone. There has been discussion over on the Big Soccer forum about how this can be resolved and most are very pessimistic. Portugal manages to have three very good club teams (the rest of their first division is pretty bad) by embracing Third Party Ownership (TPO) of players which is a pretty shady way of leveraging salaries. They also have much longer contracts which permit higher transfer fees than Ajax or other Dutch clubs may get. Probably some of this is because the agents of most Dutch players are sophisticated enough to realize that tying down a player with a long term contract works more in favor of the club than the player. I think most Ajax players only go for three year contracts.

I don't think things will get any better unless there is total financial fair play. This won't happen because of the huge disparity in television revenue. Most of those football fans in the US watch EPL games and NBC television outbid Fox a couple of years ago in a surprise move. They recently extended that contract. The average EPL team gets about €80M (I think that's the right amount in terms of the currency conversion) a year in television revenue. This is 75% of the total Ajax yearly budget and is net income! Outside of Bayern, Barca, PSG and Madrid all other Euro clubs are forced to sell players to make ends meet. This is not going to change anytime soon.

Dutch clubs have low match day income, negligible television revenue, and don't have world wide merchandise brand. I'm amazed that Ajax continues to support the academy to the level that they do.

[Tom_]

Thanks for the detailed reply. It's all true of course, but I feel like some of the 15 leagues above the eredivisie in the UEFA rankings must be facing the same problems (or worse). Maybe it's at least partly cyclical and we can hope for an uptick soon.

[Cruijff]

Well.. in the 1980's the situation of the Dutch football did look even much worse.

[SPL]

How long will the rest of Europe put up with the CL being just for 3 countries ie England,Germany, Spain ?

I still believe Ajax will be better off than any other Dutch team due to our academy.It is still known as the best and kids will still come.They know they will get a chance with us so 2 or 3 years here in our first team and they will move on and hopefully we will make money out of transfers still to keep going.