04 Mar 2007: Ajax - SC Heerenveen

[Philippe]

There is no pressure anymore

they would better feel a hell of a pressure because they still have to qualify for the play-offs, and win the them :hdg:

not to mention the Cup, if only Ten Cate can get any motivation for this squad

[saddlerian]

There is no pressure anymore

they would better feel a hell of a pressure because they still have to qualify for the play-offs,

After being part of the "crowd" who showed their "appreciation" of the team's efforts yesterday, when the team clearly showed that they lack both discipline and passion, I, like Ko, wonder when the next win will come!

When the team WERE under pressure, needing a BIG win against Bremen, they produced the goods! Yesterday, when they have the knowledge that they are NOT going to win the Eredivisie title, they producee nothing! KJH should be applauded for the three "Misses" in the first half as it must have been more difficult to miss them! The second miss was reminiscent of the Bremen game, again straight at the keeper! Is this the image we should have from a proven goal scorer?

Something's got to be done at The Arena as the team seem to have given up; the only bright spark was when Edgar Manucharyan was sent on. He was positive and forward\ thinking!

Is he the way forward? Should his attitude be used as a pre-match team talk?

Let's see after next week's game.


:xyxthumbs:
:xyxthumbs:

[bluedaddy19]

edit: forgot to say that Stam got caught out for the Heerenveen goal. Stam neglected to cover Nilsson who was positioned outside his right shoulder and chose instead to focus on the man in possesion, Gonzalo. Gonzalo was given the easy option of slipping the ball through to the unmarked Nilsson: bingo - goal Heerenveen.

actually, that struck me as grygera's fault for not holding the line everyone else was on

I think Ten Cate has done well all things considered.

sorry, no... he doesn't get a pass, the blame lies with him as much as with the players - i have frequently questioned his methods, and frankly, i feel he had failed at his job this season

that being said, i'm not going to simply judge him on the first year - i'm sure he will learn from his mistakes and we will continue to improve

amsterdam wasn't built in a day and the AJAX we want won't be either

[dws]

edit: forgot to say that Stam got caught out for the Heerenveen goal. Stam neglected to cover Nilsson who was positioned outside his right shoulder and chose instead to focus on the man in possesion, Gonzalo. Gonzalo was given the easy option of slipping the ball through to the unmarked Nilsson: bingo - goal Heerenveen.

actually, that struck me as grygera's fault for not holding the line everyone else was on

I think Ten Cate has done well all things considered.

sorry, no... he doesn't get a pass, the blame lies with him as much as with the players - i have frequently questioned his methods, and frankly, i feel he had failed at his job this season

that being said, i'm not going to simply judge him on the first year - i'm sure he will learn from his mistakes and we will continue to improve

amsterdam wasn't built in a day and the AJAX we want won't be either

We'll agree to disagree about Stam/Grygera ..... I'm right though :D

blue, the comment on HTC belongs to Bryan :yes: .... I think you screwed up with the quote thingy.

I happen to very much agree with you on HTC ..... Philippe will be so pleased :fundamentje: ;)

[aveslacker]

I think HtC has to surmount a learning curve just like Ajax does. I think HtC has been a big improvement over his predecessors, and I have a ton of confidence in van Geel.

HtC needs to improve his substitution patterns and make better tactical adjustments in the second half. I've seen Ajax play very well in some games, only to take their foot off the gas in the second half. I put this down to substitutions and failing to adapt to the changes the other team makes at the half.

I hope ten Cate will swallow his pride and learn from these errors. I also am optimistic that van Geel can bring in a few veterans (doesn't need to be a lot) to balance out the talented youth players coming up the ranks.

The organization still has some way to go to learn how to win again, but they've come a long way and I'm optimistic (or hopeful at least) that they will continue to head in the right direction and hoist the eredivisie title next season.

[Philippe]

I think HtC has to surmount a learning curve just like Ajax does.

What kind of learning curve for Ajax ? We are not a junior team, most of our players have already played at least one CL, won titles, etc ... Just the usual excuse for failure since van Praag retired.

HTC has proved to be a loser. Total disaster in European games. Unable to motivate the team for crucial Dutch league games.

We need to think of a top-class coach to replace him next season. I would suggest van Gaal (if he does not win the play-offs, because in that case AZ will keep him at any cost).

[666]

Louis van Gaal and his team started with a learning curve. He faced dismissal quite a few times in his early years at Ajax. In his first full season (not counting the year started by Leo Beenhakker) we ended up 3rd in the league, with only 69 points. Our current average will yield about 70 points this year.

And van Gaal inherited a decent team from Leo Beenhakker. He didn't have to clean up the mess left behind by Danny Blind.

[LucaS]

There was no mess of Danny Blind. There was a mess of the former TD's which resulted in a lot of players leaving Ajax for free last season. Last year Ajax beat Feyenoord, AZ, Groningen and PSV in the last months of Blind. Ten Cate's team have yet to beat a club (other than the very weak Feyenoord team) from the top 5.

[666]

Last year Ajax collected a record number of defeats. Even Jan Wouters didn't manage to lose 10 (!!!) league games.

In this stage of the season Blind didn't manage to beat PSV, AZ, or Groningen. Exactly one year ago Blind had two defeats against F-Word on his track record. The Houdini escape at the end doesn't change the ugly thruth: last season was a total disaster.

There was definitely a mess to clean up!

[LucaS]

No. Ten Cate got the desired routine players during the transfer window. And he got a fit Sneyder and Huntelaar the whole season. The fact that keyplayers in Blind's team are sold or on the bench, says enough. Ten Ctae has an excellent selection from the start, there is no mess of Blind he had to clean up. The difference after 27 games is 7 points! Still cleaning up, is he?

[666]

There was a mess of the former TD's which resulted in a lot of players leaving Ajax for free last season.

Which means we had to start all over again. You don't build a team in a single year. Even Louis The Great needed more time for that.

All competitions together:

42 22 9 11 75 85-50 Blind
42 28 6 8 90 97-43 ten Cate

Fifteen points, goal difference +19.

[LucaS]

At Ajax we do! Blind had to leave after one year. And he didn't have the classplayers ten Cate has. We didn't have to start from zero, if we did it was the choice of ten Cate and van Geel. You call it luck, and of course you are free to do so. But if Blinds team beats AZ, Feyenoord and PSV in a row, you can't say that there was no improvement and that the next trainer had to begin at zero. Last season (second half) we played with Rosales and Rosenberg as wingers, they are not good enough for ten Cate's team. We played Charisteas first competitionhalf, not good enough for ten Cate's team. We played with Maduro, not good enough for extension of his contract. We played without Stam. We played most games in 2006 without Sneyder. Boukhari was the keyplayer in midfield in 2006. You can talk as much as you want, but 7 points in the eredivie more is a very sad achievement. And than we didn't mention that ten Cate didn't reach the CL, which cost us 9 mio Euro's.
Van Geel says he has a better trainer, the trainer says he has a better selection. So no excuses, they have to make their words come true, at least the same results with better fieldplay! Is don't see it yet, but maybe ten Cate will prove he is a top trainer if he can buy more and more!

[Philippe]

I fully agree with Muisje Andersom :xyxthumbs:

Now I am worried about the end of the season : will we win the play-offs and the Cup ? :nailbite:

We badly need to play the CL.
Whatever happens, let's get an experienced top class coach for next season. :zuidema:

[666]

7 points in the eredivie more is a very sad achievement.

Last year Blinds team scored 17 points less compared to the year before. We have to go back to the Wouters era for a sadder achievement.

[LucaS]

There is a story behind the figures, as you well know. Without repeating myself, I would like to point out that quite a few games in february-april had to be played with Boukhari and Sarpong in midfield. In the same period also Grugera and Galasek were injured. I am very surprised that this is no excuse, whereas the pityfull performances of Ten Cate's team are covered under a blanket of 'blind' :D adoration.
Don't talk just about the number of points, because at the end, we might compare the Blind 'achievements', Qualification CL and surviving the groupstage, winning the cup and winning the play offs, with ten Cate's empty sheet! But great if this empty sheet is made with 10 points in the competition more.

The other arguments van Geel gave at Blind's dismissal, were that no player had improved and that the fieldplay was unworthy for Ajax. I haven't seen any (or much) progress in that aspect, did you? In the beginning of the season Ajax played good and decent games, but so did Ajax last year in the beginning of the season. Last years problem was that despite many chances, there were very little goals scored. What is this years problem?

[ZoefdeHaas]

This year's problem is that the team aren't movtivated enough. Every game they need to be told the same, can't they figure out themselves? It's really sad, even a High school team knows the importance of winning.

[saddlerian]

This year's problem is that the team aren't movtivated enough.

:headbang: :headbang:

At last! Someone agrees with me, for once!
The team AREN'T motivated; this is the coach's job.
The team AREN'T going to win anything; this is what the papers say.
The team AREN'T good enough: this is what we say.

I think we all need motivating!!!! The only way for that is for the team to work together as a unit and prove themselves to us.

This time last year I wrote that the team should only receive their "big bucks" based on their performances. If this had been carried out, you wouldn't be able to walk through the city centre without one Ajax player or another asking for "the price of a cup of tea, mister!"

The one motive for the players is money! FOR F*CK'S SAKE, EARN IT!!!!

:xyxthumbs: :xyxthumbs:

(I'll still be there at the next match!!!!!!)

[666]

Ajax has always had motivation problems against lesser opponents, even in the days of Cruijff, Beenhakker, and van Gaal. Nothing new here.

The difference is that we used to have players that could piss past the likes of Heerenveen without the need to give 'em everything they got.

[Philippe]

Motivation problem to play the Amsterdam tournament,
Motivation problem to qualify for the CL,
Motivation problem to qualify for the UEFA 1/16 finals,
Motivation problem to remain in the title race,

What's next : motivation problem to win the play-offs ?
:au:
if the coach can not bring motivation :whip: , all my hopes will be on experienced players like good old Davids B) and Stam :bryan:

[SPL]

Random thoughts.

HTC should be given another season. Blind only got one season basically and had he been in charge this season we would probably be in the same position as now.Any coach needs 2 years min.

This is going over old ground but half of last season's squad pissed off on bosmans and even Mourinho would have struggled with that!!

The only change in players with Blind would have been another midfielder instead of Gabri and we would not have bothered with the always injured Roger.

The most succesful coach since Van Gaal was of course Koeman. Everybody demands we win the title every year and if we do not then the coach gets it.

Having said all this I would still like Van Gaal to be in charge as he is doing a good job at AZ without our money.

[Kowalczyk]

The comparison with Blind is irrelevant. Totally and absolutely stupid and I really don't understand why people keep moaning about it (the same thing happens in the Dutch-language zones; it's always Ten Cate versus Blind).

Danny Blind was dismissed as head-coach, which was justified at the moment, and he has no position at Ajax at the moment. Comparing HTC to him in any way is irrelevant. Ten Cate needs to be analyzed separately. This is not a legal case. "Blind was fired for this, so in all fairness Ten Cate should be fired for it, too." That's not how it goes. Individuals (Blind, HTC, anyone) are irrelevant. We're trying to run a football club here - and we need to think of the best thing to do.

Yes, I am disappointed with the progress made this season. We've seen more good games than last season, that's for sure, but the number of poor performances is still unacceptably high. We crashed out of Europe against the first real opponent and we're ten points behind PSV in early March. That's a disappointment, most definitely, and I think very, very drastic improvement must (and will) be demanded from HTC next season.

At the end of last season everybody agreed that what we lacked was physical power, experience and leadership. We bought Stam, Perez, Gabri, Roger and Ogararu. And he had KJH from the start. It still wasn't enough: we were 12 points behind PSV halfway the season. So we signed two more: Davids (another physically strong, experienced player) and Leonardo, a 'forward who can make the difference'. Which means HTC can work with no less than seven new, self-picked, relatively experienced and (in most cases) physically strong players with a good attitude.

Considering that, there can only one conclusion: we have not made enough progress, plain simple. In certain games you could really see that this year's Ajax team has more balls than last season's (Utrecht away, Groningen away, Heerenveen away, Feyenoord 2x), but we still have too many incredible fuck-ups (Sparta Rotterdam, Excelsior, Vitesse away). Enough fuck-ups to destroy the season, anyway.

Having said that: would it be a good idea to sack HTC? I say: no. The reason to sack a head-coach can never be a stubborn sense of 'sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander' justice (in this case: 'Blind was sacked for this, so HTC must be sacked for this, too'). Every head-coach is a separate case, to be analyzed pragmatically. Is there a better one out there? Is he available? Can we afford him? Can we sign the players he would want to sign? Can we keep the players he would want to keep?

This is football; not jurisdiction. We have to be pragmatic.

HTC should not be fired, for the simple reason that it would make no sense. And I would still say that if the football and the results were worse than under Danny Blind (which, over all, they definitely aren't; let's make that clear). I just can't think of a successor, there is no money for new signings and I firmly believe that this squad is actually good enough. Plenty of talent, plenty of quality, plenty of options. I think we should not panic and wait 'til next season. Next season the championship is a must. No more excuses. If it doesn't happen next year, HTC must (and will) be held responsible.

K.

[LucaS]

Why should we only 'judge' Ten Cate next year, Ko? Of course comparing Ten Cate to Blind is irrelevant. However, judging the new head coach against the standards set by van Geel when he sacked Blind, is not. Blind was sacked, Van Geel stated, not so much as a result of bad results (which were of course in the end not as dramatic below the line as it seemed the moment the decision to sack Blind was made), but as a result of the 'Ajax unworthy' fieldplay that was shown, and because of the fact that too few players made progress in the eyes of van Geel. With this statement van Geel set the standards on which to judge the trainer, whether his name is Ten Cate, Van Gaal or who-ever.

When we look at what happened this year I can come to no other conclusion than that Ten Cate has failed on all demands that had to be set for a new trainer. The results are only slightly better when it comes to points in the 'eredivisie', CL-qualification was fucked up, the games, except for the first months (as with Blind, Koeman and other predecessors) are terrible to watch, and players still make the same mistakes. Maybe (maybe) Babel and Heitinga improved, but Huntelaar, Maduro, Stekelenburg, Emanuelson most certainly didn't.

At the end, it's very questionable if Ten Cate's team will get the same result as last year's team. Only a few points more, but the position in the tabel doesn't differ that much. To get the same results he'll (the team of course) have to win the play-offs and the cup. In that case he didn't do better than last year, but at least he would equal the results.

Van Geel sacked a coach who spent his life with Ajax, on a way, in any case for outsiders, which was not very decent. A coach that was very populair with a lot of fans. He even stayed popular (although he did loose 'fans') when he stated that the public was lousy sometimes (which of course is absolutely true; Ajax audience is more like snooker audience than a footballcrowd). But you are right, Blind's gone. Van Geel however is obligated to organise Ajax better than last year. He didn't, so he, and with him Ten Cate, failed. Maybe you are right, maybe it's sentiment or anger about how a Ajacied was treated by this yup van Geel, but Ajax is not a hobbyclub. So van Geel should go together with Ten Cate. They clearly are not fit for the job. I don't see why Ten Cate should get more time than his predecessors, he has the best selection of them all!

[Philippe]

HTC should not be fired, for the simple reason that it would make no sense. And I would still say that if the football and the results were worse than under Danny Blind (which, over all, they definitely aren't; let's make that clear).
K.

I don't know why you keep mentionning Blind.
You are the one to do that and then you say this is stupid.
And this is not very clever indeed.
You can't go on forever defending HTC with the only argument that he is doing better than Blind (btw results may well be worse than with Blind, with whom we had a tremendous season end.)
Unless we win the play-offs and the cup, HTC will have to go. Not because he will then have done worse than Blind, but because he will have f**d up absolutely everything from the beginning till the end of the season.
But as you say we have more potential this season, and I trust experienced players to help us win those.

[Philippe]

Van Geel however is obligated to organise Ajax better than last year. He didn't, so he, and with him Ten Cate, failed. Maybe you are right, maybe it's sentiment or anger about how a Ajacied was treated by this yup van Geel, but Ajax is not a hobbyclub. So van Geel should go together with Ten Cate. They clearly are not fit for the job. I don't see why Ten Cate should get more time than his predecessors, he has the best selection of them all!

well said ! :xyxthumbs:

[Kowalczyk]

So van Geel should go together with Ten Cate.

And then what?

That's the only question that counts.

As I said: is there a better one out there? Is he available? Can we afford him? Can we sign the players he would want to sign? Can we keep the players he would want to keep?

Pragmatism is the only way.

K.