• cubeje@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Lot of talk about Ajax but what on earth is happening at Utrecht? Not doing too well themselves

  • RTafazolli1@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    What has gone so horribly wrong for Ajax this season? It can’t just be down to the manager as the players have to take accountability for it too?

    • JD1337@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      A lot of things happened but I’ll try to give a summary:

      • Ajax was about to offer Marc Overmars (DoF) an extension. Word comes out he’s a sexpest who harassed female employees. He resigns and they spend the rest of the season without a DoF.
      • Ten Hag was set to leave at the end of the season. He’s done great but you could see some cracks appearing at the end of the season when Ajax only narrowly managed to elude PSV for the title. (It shouldn’t have been that close imo)
      • Ajax appoint Schreuder als Manager in the summer, they also get Bergwijn for 30 million, Owen Wijndal for 10m als Blind replacement and bring back Brobbey for 17m als Haller replacement.
      • Ajax starts the season decently but quickly fall off as the Ten Hag structure dissapears the longer Schreuder is manager. Meanwhile Wijndal is awful, Blind looks washed, Bergwijn falls off a cliff after 3 good games.
      • Ajax spends the entire season without DoF and they lack any sort of structure. Schreuder finally gets fired after a dissapointing first half of the season and John Heitinga becomes the interim manager.
      • He can’t get Ajax on the mend however and they end up 3rd behind PSV and Feyenoord and lose out to PSV in the cup final.
      • Ajax get Mislintat as their DoF and they appoint Steijn as manager. Steijn is unproven but had a good season getting Sparta to a ‘better-than-mid-table’ position, which was surprising.
      • Mislintat and Ajax eventually sell Alvarez en Kudus who were definitely their best players. Blind already left half a season ago and Tadic also forces his way out, Klaassen is also shown the door. All their senior players from the last few seasons are now gone.
      • Mislintat is late in getting players and he gets a few questionable ones, some who’ve never played top tier leagues before as they hail from the Championship. 2. Bundesliga or second tier French league.
      • Steijn is in over his head, the 11(!) new players either look like shit or just hopelessly lost and they keep throwing away games and points because they can neither attack or defend.

      Also: Mislintat got fired, there might be shady stuff with agents going on (Sosa) and it looks like Ajax threw 112 million euros down the drain for bad to mediocre players (Akpom, Medic, Gaaei, Mikautdze, Avila)

      To make things worse, Feyenoord and PSV are playing some of the best football both teams have player in perhaps decades.

      • Craizinho@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        No doubt it’s money poorly spent but Akpom could definitely come good, deserves starts more than Brobbey. Even Mikautdze deserve a run over him. The sacked managers lineups have been more than questionable

  • BoomBoomLinssen@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    A minutes long 100% serous conversation about whether Ajax has better players than Excelsior was peak television

      • justforkikkk@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Can’t believe I found myself agreeing with Van Hooijdonk for 30 mins straight, I feel disgusting

          • Aethien@alien.topB
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            1 year ago

            Let’s just say that he was a lot better at playijg football than he is at talking about it.

            • AlmostNL@alien.topB
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              1 year ago

              Hey I like listening to him.

              It’s also pretty difficult to be better than he was at football because he was damn good.

    • zounderk1te@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      While simultaneously mentioning at least 6 players (coincidentally almost all Dutch!) who are good enough according to VdV, but ‘‘they just don’t have the form’’.

      Obviously renowned prodigy Kenneth Taylor is being brought down by the new signings. How dare they.

      • quidome@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, that was weird. Blaming it all on the new guys. I’m not buying it.

  • NumberHunter1@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    The headlines a few months ago were “Ludogorets beat the great Ajax 0-1 in Amsterdam”. More and more it seems like the more impressive feat is the one from 1 week before - “Ludogorets lose 1-4 at home against relegation candidate”.