25 NOV 2023; Ajax - Vitesse; Match Day 12

[Orange14]

Back in action this Saturday, hosting Vitesse. Ajax got some bad news last week as van den Boomen required knee surgery and will be out until after the winter break. Ajax still have the suspended match against RKC to finish and have a decent chance to the upper half of the table after the horrible start.

[SPL]

Maybe a bad omen but our u18 only drew 1-1 at home to Vitesse u18 today.

MF looks like Rensch,Taylor,Hlynsson,thats very weak.

[SPL]

Tahirovic is MF and Rensch is Cd as Sutalo is out.Martha back at LB and Akpom starts with Brobbey out .

Must win game and with the top 4 teams playing each other now and dropping points we can still finish 4th maybe 3rd .Giving away that dreadful penalty v Almere could turn out to be a very costly 2 points at the end of the season.If we end up a point behind 3rd place at the end I will mention this post.

[saddlerian]

Two up at the moment... what's the empty F Side in aid of??

[Orange14]

Two up at the moment... what's the empty F Side in aid of??

Banned because of all the flares thrown on the pitch at the Feyenoord match.

[Orange14]

Rensch was really lucky that VAR did not have a good view of the off side goal leaving the wrong on the field call to stand. He was then caught up field later in the half leading to a break away. Taylor has been much better this game with good passes on both Ajax goals. Akbom is average at best and I would like to see Mikautadze in the 2nd half.

[SPL]

So far so good and we are playing better football but I still worry about our defence.Rensch is not good enough.akpom not as good as Brobbey

[SPL]

4-0 and Chuba does know where the net is,Brobbey has not found the net so easy !

We are starting to look like Ajax again

[SPL]

After the OG it was game over and finally we saw a performance worthy of Ajax .Now up to 8th place and climbing .

Our starting MF was ok today and we finished with a MF of S-Eddine ,Bergwijn and Rensch ,none are MF. i expect a different lineup on Thursday and Sutalo and Brobbey hopefully will be back.

Forbs for all his speed is no better than Godts and although Mikautadze had a few nice touches I still dont understand his signing as he is 3rd choice striker.

Not sure where Rensch should play, he is not a Cd and Gaaei had a good game today.

Well big relief and just hope we have turned the corner.

[Orange14]

Ajax were hardly troubled by a very poor Vitesse team easily winning 5-0. Let's hope things are finally turned around under van't Schip. There was a fortunate off sides call on what should have been a goal by Vitesse that would have drawn them even in the first half but VAR did not have a proper picture to make the call so the on field decision stood. The Ajax defense was pretty solid and Ramaj did not have any difficult shots to stop. Hato got his first goal for Ajax and it proved to be the match winner.

Player Ratings:

Ramaj (6) - just some ordinary shots to save
Gaaei (6.5) - decent enough game with some good challenges and offensive link ups
Rensch (6) - two dicey plays in the first half but pretty good in the 2nd
Hato (7.5) - anchored the defense nicely and his timed run to get a fairly easy goal in the opening minutes of the game was nice
Martha (6) - had some trouble defending Manhoef in the first half but settled down and did a good job
Tahirovic (6.5) - kept good position all match and had fewer back passes on the night
Taylor (8) - very strong match both passing and shooting with a goal to show for it, he is my MOTM
Hlynsson (6.5) - worked real hard and had a good goal along with some good runs in the box
Berghuis (6) - decent enough but that's all
Akbom (6.5) - got his goal right after the own goal where it looked like he might have gotten his toe on the ball but didn't
Bergwijn (7) - solid game from the captain
Mikautadze (6) - on for Akbom and showed some good quickness in the middle
Forbs (5.5) - showed good speed coming in for Hlynsson
Godts (NR) - on late for Berghuis who took a knock to his ankle
Medic (NR) - on late for Tahirovic with Rensch moving up to the MF
Salah-Eddine (NR) - on for Taylor

Thursday night football with a trip to Marseille coming up. Marseille appear to be in crisis with the technical director resigning yesterday. Ajax face a must win game if they hope to have any chance of continuing Away to NEC next weekend followed by the make up 5 minutes against RKC. Ajax are up to eighth on 15 points with the RKC 3 points still needing to be sealed.