Ajaxtalk

Will Ajax still be in fourth place by the time this game comes around?

Taylor sick so Klaassen starts and Gloukh replaces Taylor with Bounida on the RW.Hope Steur gets 20 mins or so but with Klaassen starting F-Jim and Mokio must wonder what they are doing here!

Dreadful so from Ajax but we create nothing but they give away an own goal.Apart from Baas and to an extent Bounida the other 9 can all be replaced.He could play at 10 with Moro on the right wing .

Easy to say but Wijndal should have picked up Serhuis for the goal. It can only get better!

2 goals ,Wijndal a beauty was enough but Baas's 2nd yellow and red a bit weak.We were on the back foot from his SO but we managed to keep them out and get 3 points

At this point, I will take any kind of win. Ajax again concede a stupid soft goal early on. Thanks to two own goals at the beginning of the 2nd half and then a great strike by Wijndal, Ajax are up 3-1 and then Fortuna get a man sent off for a nasty from behind tackle on Bounida. Just when I thought I could breathe easy, Baas gets sent off on a 2nd YC for a ticky tack foul. I thought the match official was poor. There were at least three tough fouls in the first half that were not called and the inconsistent calls were maddening. I guess Wijndall is the MOTM. In addition to the goal he had a couple of good runs behind the defense and delivered a nice cross that led to an own goal.

Player Ratings:

Jaros (5.5) - anyone else think he has cement hands? Doubt he will ever feature for Liverpool
Regeer (6) - above average just like most of his teammates
Bouwman (6) - still has problems with positioning and should have done better on defending that led to the only Fortuna goal
Baas (5.5) - sent off because of two modest fouls
Wijndal (7) - great strike and more than decent play
Itakura (6.5) - did well in the MF and then dropped back when Baas was sent off
Klaassen (5.5) - really should not be in the team sheet and certainly not play 90 minutes
Oscar (6) - decent enough
Bounida (6) - had some nice time with the ball and lucky not to have suffered and injury on a nasty tackle
Weghorst (5) - Dolberg should be starting now
Godts (6) - above average but still makes some poor decisions with the ball
Dolberg (6) - good at holding the ball and figuring out who to pass to
Mokio (NR) - on for the final 15 minutes
Rosa (NR) - see above
Gaaei (NR) - on late
Moro (NR) - on late

Off toe Azerbaijan for a Champions League match that is likely to be very dull. Feyenoord next week without our best central defender

Yuck, 2 OGs and a shot from distance (saveable imo) made this look much better than it was.

Again, no danger created all match even when Fortuna went down to 10 and there was heaps of room behind the defence. No one in the team knows how to use the ball effectively except maybe Klaassen, who is too slow to pull it off.

Watching Oscar dribble into three defenders because he can’t take an open shot with his left foot makes me want to cry. Totally unacceptable for a professional footballer. Godts just runs around in circles until a defender takes the ball off him.

I do agree that the ref didn’t help, he let Fortuna kick the crap out of us all game except for one of the lighter fouls, which he gave a red for. After he’d done that it was totally obvious he was going to find a way to send Baas off and Grim should’ve subbed him immediately.

Not sure how we won that game as we created nothing and with 10 aside for the last 30 mins they were the only side who looked like scoring . The ref was dreadful ,should have yellow carded a few more Sittard fouls but Baas should not have had 2 yellows .

I am increasingly of the opinion that Grim is not a very good match manager. Now I don't know what he said at halftime but he really did not make the proper substitutions. As Tom noted, Baas should have been pulled right after the Fortuna RC so that he would not be sent off for something as silly as tripping himself. Furthermore, against 10 Fitz-Jim should have come on for Klaassen as there was going to be a lot more space on the field and a player with good passing ability and field view will be preferred to a draught horse who just plods along.