27 Apr 2014: Heracles Almelo - Ajax

[ajaxcolombia]

Eredivise title number 33 and fourth in a row.

[kezme44]

33

[Arthur]

Congratulations everyone!

[SPL]

well we are champs after the most boring last 20 mins of football I have ever seen. But who cares we are the champs

[Amol]

well we are champs after the most boring last 20 mins of football I have ever seen. But who cares we are the champs

I'm still watching on a 1 hour delay. But so far it doesn't seem like they want to win.

[ajaxusa]

It's nice to win a championship. 4 in a row is amazing. But I've never been less excited about a major trophy. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I were in Amsterdam. But here in CA, it feels a bit hollow.

[Orange14]

I'm sorry but that was a shameful, horrible, terrible, execrable, cowardly, and anti-football display in the final 20 minutes. Both teams should be ashamed of themselves for just sitting on a 1-1 draw. I take ZERO pleasure in winning a fourth championship in this manner. This was a below average match on the part of many of the Ajax starters and they really should look in the mirror and think 'is this the way we wanted to win the league?'

Player ratings:

FdB (0) - Anti-football should never be rewarded!

Cillessen (7) - maybe at fault on the Heracles goal but had two wonderful stops to save the tie
Boilesen (7) - one of the better players on the pitch and he can be proud of his performance
Denswil (4.5) - average and no better, he really needs to get mentally prepared if he is to start next season
Veltman (7) - good match though there wasn't much to do when they went to a three man back line
van Rhijn (5.5) - OK match
Blind (5.5) - had a couple of slip ups when he lost his man but fortunately no goals came of it
Klaassen (3.5) - had a shot on goal and that was it
Serero (4.5) - drew some fouls including the one that led to Schöne's goal but otherwise no better than average
de Sa (5.5) - OK at points in the match before coming off
Sigthorrson (3.5) - slow, can't control the ball, can't press, can't pass and generally a huge disappointment yet again
Schöne (7) - nice free kick and shows why he is the player of the year for the club
Poulsen (6) - had a lot of touches when nobody wanted to play football
Bojan (6) - had one chance to score but shot wide
Duarte (NR) - don't think he even had a touch

One worthless game coming up next weekend and then we can all discuss what's needed in the Drive For Five.

[ajaxcolombia]

We've officially completed a whole World Cup cycle of champions, which sounds really cool if you think about it that way. The team has a lot to evaluate, particularly Frankie who can't be blind to how ineffective we were down the stretch. Between schone and veltman is Ajax player of the year. Young player of the year...well veltman still counts I guess.

[King Litti]

yes, we suck the least. Well can't complain since we had a drought before this dynasty. Have we won 4 in a row before?

[Tom_]

Totally lame end to a fairly lame season

[SPL]

Since Christmas our only really comfortable win was AZ 4-0. But 21 games without defeat and a very good defensive record sees us being the best of a poor bunch of teams this season.

My highlight of the season ,easy, those last 5 mins v Roda back in December when one 17 year old youth player came on and scored 2 goals .

Yes The Jairo Riedewald debut is my highlight of the season.

[Van basten]

Have we won 4 in a row before?

Noup.

[Dave the mac]

Yep not much to celibate - Orange14 as always thanks for your player ratings. Noteworthy that you omitted Klaassen, who was totally anonymous as usual. 2.0 for him and van Rhijn whom has mastered the back pass.

[ajaxcolombia]

Statistically we have been quite an anomaly all year as we allow a fairly high amount of good quality chances yet we haven't conceded as much as we should have. I don't know if frank is into sophisticated statistics but he should check out 11tegen11, in which there was an article about this. Plus, we are only fifth in shots created which is also problematic. This team can't become a fast counter attacking side just like that. Imagine for example a defender like veltman having to withstand constant pressure, we just don't have this kind of defenders. That's why keeping possession is key, so maybe what we need is actually greater quality in the attacking front. I'd like to see a more balanced midfield next year, yes I know we keep possession and don't concede that often but again we are very vulnerable to conceding good chances. We should have a midfield three consisting of a destroyer (with good passing game), a box to box midfielder (lex immers for me is currently the model of this in eredivise, despite being a dislikable player), and of course, a creative midfielder (dusan tadic, the best player in the eredivise is this). Having more proper wingers who can supply some protection to our backstops would be nice too.

[Orange14]

Yep not much to celibate - Orange14 as always thanks for your player ratings. Noteworthy that you omitted Klaassen, who was totally anonymous as usual. 2.0 for him and van Rhijn whom has mastered the back pass.

Fixed and I bumped Klaassen up a little as he did have a snap shot on goal that was saved.

[pizza 5]

Great to have number 4 in the pocket, well done to all especially Frankie who has carried on with his good work this season. I was still very disappointed with how this game finished with all the silly tippy-tappie at the end, bloody hell we are playing Heracles not Bayern Munich. My player of the year would have to be Schone who has really made a difference when he has played.
Looking forward to going over for the game next weekend, we can relax and enjoy it now and just think about who is going to leave this summer.

[aveslacker]

Ajax wins number four in a row, and I'm three weeks from leaving Afghanistan.

Good news all around.

Congrats, guys!

[Philippe]

33 !

Well done Frank, the players, the technical staff, the supporters.

We are the champions !

[ajaxcolombia]

It's really interesting to analyze how Frank de Boer has evolved as a manager during his three and half years and four eredivise championships at the helm. His first six months, starting in december 2010, were characterized by trying to bring back the 4-3-3 formation and the tactical approach he considered as the real "ajax identity". At first, he distanced himself form the more 4-2-3-1ish formation used by Martin Jol by using a midfield three with de zeeuw playing a bit of a more advance role alongside eriksen. De Zeeuw was particularly horrible when playing for Martin Jol because he didn't really have the tactical discipline to play as a holding midfielder, often leaving a lot of ground exposed. He improved with De Boer in a more attacking role, but he was never a superstar at Ajax. He first used enoh and then anita as the sole holding midfielders. Anita in particular was a real success in that role. Enoh lost his spot because he didn't have good passing game, something that as we all know would be become the trademark of De boer's managing style. Once the team understood this system, this team began winning matches by the lot.

The next season, probably trying to push his success with a anita a but further or maybe trying to emulate what pep was doing at barcelona, De Boer wanted to revolutionize football by creating a team of all very highly technical players. Specialized roles such as the "defensive midfielder" were to be considered obsolete, instead fielding a team that was all comfortable with the ball in their feet (vermeer being the exception, we all remember a couple of games in which this was very obvious). He then benched Anita and brought theo janssen, supposedly an upgrade in terms of technical skill, and fielded a midfield three of all creative players. This season featured De Boer being the most adventerous with tactics. For example, we saw the three defenders backline more often in this season than in any of the other ones, specially against the 4-4-2. After it was obvious Theo couldn't fulfill this role of a deep lying playmaker and due to Siggy's season ending injury, this plan was scrapped for a more traditional 4-3-3 with anita as an actual holding midfielder, and again being a highlight for the team. Again, Anita was fundamental to De Boer's success in this first two seasons, and it is a statement to the importance of the holding mmidfielder during De Boer's tenure.

We then lost Anita for the third season, and also Vertonghen. This season saw the rise of Daley Blind. He became a dominating force as a left back, which was key in this third championship, the AZ away game comes to mind in particular. In this season, De Jong at times returned to the midfield, which in my opinion often expossed his many limitations as a player, slow and little creativity. Tactically, De Boer struggled to find the right balance in midfield going normally for either schone or poulsen as holding midfielder. Schone had problems here as he is not a very defensive minded player, while poulsen was slow and couldn't play at high pace. This team would have been excellent with a more mobile and complete midfielder to play the defensive role. However, the brilliance of Eriksen, Blind, and partially Viktor Fischer, were key to place De boer in ajax history. Eriksen's role, which I don't know if it came from a tactical direction, was fantastic as he would often find pockets of space playing as a sort of "phantom winger". Think about the game at eindhoven. He stepped away from the middle of the field and found lots of space in the left side of the pitch where van bommel wouldn't track him.

And then the fourth season...The solution to the midfield problem of the previous season was to play the best player in the current roster, daley blind, in the more important central midfield role. At times it worked very well, but De boer suffered by losing a lot of talent once eriksen left. He decided to go with Serero, a player with good pass accuracy but little ability to produce incisive attacking passes, and Klaassen, whom I see more fit to be a shadow striker or a false nine, the current de jong role, than a creative midfielder. It was goals that justified Klaassen's starting role more than creative contribution. Both of our creative midfielders offered only slighlty above one key pass per game, and this was a huge problem all season. In all fairness, the ball retention tactic did help us by protecting us from being scored upon as often as other teams in the eredivise. It was central to our defensive record being the best (although we were very vulnerable to quick counterattacks, and we were destroyed whenever our backline came under a bit of pressure, as all high possession teams seem to be). I don't expect Ajax to be much different tactically next season, 4-3-3 with one holding player and two creative midfielders, inverted wingers more often than not, and lots of passing between the centre-backs. Klaassen signed to a four-year deal means he's seen as a key player going forward, which I really hope means he will evolve as the first choice striker as I don't see him being very important as a creative midfielder. Serero is fine, as long as he plays besides a player who puts in a higher rate of key passes and he is the supporting "passing" midfielder. This season Schone has the highest rate, 2 KP per game of all ajax players. Don't know if he'll stay or he'll continue playing right wing. Only time will tell. I'm glad I have this space to talk about Ajax, so cheers, 4th title in a row!!

[Orange14]

@axaxcolumbia - excellent overview!! Only issue I see is Serero's high pass completion rating. I think the majority were probably backpasses to Blind, Veltman and Moisander.

[ajaxcolombia]

Thank you! Yes I know Serero has this weakness, he spends too much time with his back towards the opposition goal. However, if he could play besides a better dribbling and key pass producing midfielder, he wouldn't be too bad as a very poor man's xavi that keeps the passes ticking.

[Tom_]

Great post, thanks. I wonder if he would have the cachet at a 'bigger' club to be so rigid tactically? I guess maybe he'd have the resources to put together a squad that could make it work better than it did this season...

[ajaxcolombia]

Ok so I've edited a bit my original post, I had horrible grammar mistakes and added a few more insights.

[Orange14]

Great post, thanks. I wonder if he would have the cachet at a 'bigger' club to be so rigid tactically? I guess maybe he'd have the resources to put together a squad that could make it work better than it did this season...

Here's what I posted on another board in light of FdB's rumoured visit to Spurs.

I'm not convinced at this point that FdB is ready for a top flight club or one like Spurs that aspires to top flight but will never get there. Tactically he still needs to figure some things out and his selection of players needs to improve. His managing experience is much briefer than van Basten's when he took control of Ajax and he has won championships in a league where there is precious little quality competition. More telling is that he has not been able to progress in Europe at all and doesn't get the team to respond when they are challenged by the unexpected.

Look at what happened against Red Bull in the EL. The team was thoroughly humiliated in both matches. I certainly thought Red Bull was a force to be reckoned with in the EL yet they went out to Basel in the next round so maybe they were not very good. If that was the case it pegs Ajax way back. FdB needs to do what he said and that's finish out his contract and bring some of the young talent into the team. With respect to Antario2, FdB is not as good a manager as Wenger.

I would be surprised if he does leave and Spurs are the only team I can see him going to as ManU wants a proven manager and I don't think he is up to the challenge at Barca if Tata Martino gets the axe.

[ajaxcolombia]

This is spot on. I do however have a morbid curiosity to see how de boer would manage a much higher transfer budget than what he's used to. How could we rate his transfers so far? Janssen? so, so. Cuenca? Failure. Moisander? success. Bojan? Failure. Duarte? failure. Van der hoorn? failure. Mostly negative.