14 Oct 2006: Ajax - FC Groningen

andy · Bericht door **andy** » zo okt 15, 2006 5:16 am

Well three more points and another dramatic victory. Great job by Babel, hope he keeps it up and of course Urby for the heroic last goal.

bluedaddy19 · Bericht door **bluedaddy19** » zo okt 15, 2006 10:11 am

it wasn't beautiful, but it was three hard earned points against a tough opponent (and yet another nutbag ref)

i am satisfied :smile-ajax:

bluedaddy19 · Bericht door **bluedaddy19** » zo okt 15, 2006 10:13 am

Ayman schreef:Amol said:

What the hell is happening here? 1-2 - we gave up two goals in like 5 minutes.
I bet it was Vermaelens fault on atleast one of the occasions, he should be axed!

i keep saying it too... put johnny back in the middle where he belongs and excels

it was completely stam's fault on the second goal, although suarez also clearly handled intentionally

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » zo okt 15, 2006 10:57 am

I though Heitinga had a very good game today. He was good. But what's the Vermaelen crap all about...? The guy did absolutely nothing wrong today... Come on!

Anyway: match report is up.

http://www.ajax-usa.com/matches/m06-07/ ... n-3-2.html

Jim is partying in Vegas this weekend. He will be return home on Sunday evening and he will then add pictures to the report.

K.

Bericht door **Jinne** » zo okt 15, 2006 12:44 pm

Ayman and bluedaddy must be the only two real fans Heit still has. Although he wasn't bad yesterday, but the same goes for Vermaelen. He was good, won all his headers.

Steek was fully to blame for the second goal. He held up his hand trying to say 'my ball'.

bluedaddy19 · Bericht door **bluedaddy19** » zo okt 15, 2006 1:09 pm

Kowalczyk schreef:I though Heitinga had a very good game today. He was good. But what's the Vermaelen crap all about...? The guy did absolutely nothing wrong today... Come on!

K.

c'mon guys... he is practially an escort to the area at times

Blind3 · Bericht door **Blind3** » zo okt 15, 2006 1:14 pm

Glad to see Ajax has the taste in its mouth for grinding out a result . It looks like the league may have more balance up top than in past years. If so, this necessitates the kind of scrappy ; bring a lunch ,we'll be here awhile; bloody lipped efforts of the last two matches. Nice to see Ajax has that character trait as well as the normal one touch swagger.

Great job lads. The Pride of The North may have had more time to prepare with a full squad than Ajax , but Ajax showed what heart ,guts, toughness, fortitude, and a little personal inspiration can do .

I used to be a nattering naybob of negativism who always questioned their heart and guts or wished for a scrappy Van Halst - type . How refreshing to get off that soap box .

GREAT JOB LADS! Great to see Babel and Emanuelson come up huge . More weapons to hopefully torment opponents.HUP AJAX!!! :xyxthumbs:

andy · Bericht door **andy** » zo okt 15, 2006 3:17 pm

One thing I am worried about is, even though we've won the last two matches and scored six goals, we still gave away two. We need to be more solid in defense. We have four amazing defenders in: Vermaelen, Stam, Heitinga and Grygera. I guess what they need is just to be more focus throughout the game.

afckeeper95 · Bericht door **afckeeper95** » zo okt 15, 2006 6:04 pm

andy schreef:One thing I am worried about is, even though we've won the last two matches and scored six goals, we still gave away two. We need to be more solid in defense. We have four amazing defenders in: Vermaelen, Stam, Heitinga and Grygera. I guess what they need is just to be more focus throughout the game.

Giving away two isn't the end of the world. Especially when one of them came about on a keeper fumble.

Venezuelan Ajacied · Bericht door **Venezuelan Ajacied** » ma okt 16, 2006 5:08 am

afckeeper95 schreef:
andy schreef:One thing I am worried about is, even though we've won the last two matches and scored six goals, we still gave away two. We need to be more solid in defense. We have four amazing defenders in: Vermaelen, Stam, Heitinga and Grygera. I guess what they need is just to be more focus throughout the game.
Giving away two isn't the end of the world. Especially when one of them came about on a keeper fumble.

And another one on a fucking unrealistic penalty (Utrecht).

I'm really starting too believe this team can do some pretty good stuff this year. Congrats lads !!!!!

Hup AJAX!!!!!!

No on too kick some F-word ASS !!!!!!!!!!!!

Over Pasanens Head · Bericht door **Over Pasanens Head** » ma okt 16, 2006 2:15 pm

I viewed the game slightly differently to Ko in that I thought that the 1st half was just average.
Ajax were too slow in thought and action on just too many instances. De Mul was just too ponderous and didn't really strike a good partnership with Heitinga.
Having criticised Ajax, I must say that I thgought that Groningen got their tactics just right in the first half and totally out-numbered Ajax's midfield. It didn't help that Gabri seemed to be a little bit off the pace of the game - very strange from him.
However, the second half was absolutely brilliant and had everything you could wish for from a game of footie.

Now a plea to the management - play Perez from the start.

andy · Bericht door **andy** » ma okt 16, 2006 5:44 pm

If Perez starts, where will he play? he left wing seems to be babel's already. maybe he could play right wing since Mauro has not been great this season, but can has he ever played that position for full 90 minutes??[/quote]

andy · Bericht door **andy** » ma okt 16, 2006 6:22 pm

OH NOO X'C babel injured!!!!! he might not be back for the classic.

SE6Ajacied · Bericht door **SE6Ajacied** » di okt 17, 2006 8:29 pm

Dubbel schreef:Wonder when SE6Ajacied and SwedishFan will be sober enough to share their insights with us. I can imagine them feeling ripped with a 1-2 score because travelling far for a home game and then facing a loss sucks intensily. To still be able to leave the stadium at 3-2 definitley calls for a celebration. :yes: :bier:

Well I would have been sober enough the next morning (just) but I stayed on for a couple of days and only got back home tonight.

What can I say, an excellent game, as Ko says, if nothing else in terms of a real exciting game of football. Yeah, we could have beaten them 3-0 for example and cruised it but that just wouldn't have been such a memorable game. I was beginning to think I was cursed at half-time (I tended to have the same effect on Blackpool

) but that was just a real rollercoaster of a game.

I was planning on going to see Blauw Wit play on Sunday but thanks to the Amsterdam marathon messing up all the tram routes I didn't actually get there. (so you didn't miss much OPH!!) It looked like a simple enough walk on the map from where they stopped the tram (at the Olympic Stadium - I had over an hour to walk it!) but I think I need to get used to walking in Amsterdam which surprise surprise is full of canals/water which tend to mess up the direct walk a bit!! Anyway, after over an hours hike I gave up but did visit the Amsterdam Museum in Kalverstraat which actually had a fairly interesting Ajax film display (subtitled in English :xyxthumbs: ) so Sunday wasn't a complete wash-out.

Anyway, great game of football, I can still see Urby's winner in my head.....