dannyboy
Player Valuation: £60m
Good shout this, always a worry age is going to catch up with him at any time though, knowing our luck that would be next season.
Still can't argue with 13 goals in that Sunderland team.
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Good shout this, always a worry age is going to catch up with him at any time though, knowing our luck that would be next season.
Still can't argue with 13 goals in that Sunderland team.
Stam appears to be Assman for Ajax A1 with Ronald Head Coach.
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Stars are aligned....
I'm thinking, if i was a player who would i want as manager and the overwhelming choice is mourinho.
other than him i think we should focus on someone who can develop players with a solid management / coaching team -- thats De Boer on paper....
Actually no, Stam is Assman for Jong Ajax and Ronald is Ajax A1 Assman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jong_Ajax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_Youth_Academy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jong_Ajax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_Youth_Academy
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Very good player and we should have signed him a few years ago before going for Kone. Its been a weakspot for martinez going for players he has known or tracked before.
On the flipside i wonder about these young players coming through. Mourinho has said that he would play one in at LB and thsts enough for the defence aa he needs to ensure its solid also perhaps one at RW far away from the other player.
Makes alot of sense but wouldnt help to develop players who are good enough now for a few games or minutes.
Ajax and PSV need to play kids out of necessity and do it well so perhaps thats the better approach for us to create something long lasting.
Then add a few sprinkles of new signings or short term atop gaps like Defoe.
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
If he came alone or just with his brother it could be a major risk with him possibly reliant on this coaching/management team.
With these big names including bergkamp and overmars, stam and the rest its a really low risk approach from Moshiri.
Totally opposite spectrums in my opinion.
Manchester United are 1 of the richest clubs in the world.
They are currently giving chances to 2 youth players, despite spending 350m on new players in the last few years.
Why do people "care" so much about youth? Sure, theres honestly nothing better than a Rooney, a Barkley, those 2 young lads living their dream yesterday, makes everything worthwhile, but the reality is the percentage of players "good" enough for top level football is quite small.
Well when he was talking to Swansea, his words were "If I can bring my management team", im just assuming Bergkamp would take over, Overmars would stay, they all might come, hes leaving his "comfort zone", im pretty sure he wouldnt come over unprepared.
He was a top class footballer who played at the very highest level, that means nothing in terms of ability to manage, but it means he knows what it takes, hes "proved" his ability to manage, the risk would be can he make the "step up", nobody knows, but he has a good pedigree in my eyes.
I think even the best managers can have a dip in form in particular seasons, for example Mourinho had a shocker this season and was sacked because Chelsea were one point off relegation zone and he seemed to have no idea how to sort it out.
Previous seasons Emery has had a good away record, last season they won 10 so it's not like it's always been a problem. Bit of a dip this year with lots of draws but still in semi final of Europa and seventh in league. Lets hope he can win the Europa again this year!
Barca might want a new Manager soon.
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Im hogging the thread a bit here but just wanted to add.
De Boer was captain of Ajax, Barca and Holland. Clearly he would know what makes a good captain and install players with leadership which we desperately lack.
Also, would be used to players moving away from Ajax so would hopefully come in once Howard,hibbert,osman,gibson,pienaar are all gone and then do an additional sweep of kone,mcgeady etc.
As he plays varients of 4-3-3 we wouldnt need many changes other than a top notch mobile DM such as Bazoer and also a left sided winger. We have players in the other positions who could be used or upgraded as well as the youth players who he could bring through.
The more i think about it, the more he is the best option for us with a long term view.
Tricky thing though is that it may take a couple of seasons for the kids to come through and also for him to make the changes he needs....whilst mourinho would come in to solely win games from day 1.
De Boer was captain of Ajax, Barca and Holland. Clearly he would know what makes a good captain and install players with leadership which we desperately lack.
Also, would be used to players moving away from Ajax so would hopefully come in once Howard,hibbert,osman,gibson,pienaar are all gone and then do an additional sweep of kone,mcgeady etc.
As he plays varients of 4-3-3 we wouldnt need many changes other than a top notch mobile DM such as Bazoer and also a left sided winger. We have players in the other positions who could be used or upgraded as well as the youth players who he could bring through.
The more i think about it, the more he is the best option for us with a long term view.
Tricky thing though is that it may take a couple of seasons for the kids to come through and also for him to make the changes he needs....whilst mourinho would come in to solely win games from day 1.
Zat, no manager will risk his job playing sub standard kids.
Dont worry about the youth players, if they are good enough they will get their chance.
Dont worry about the youth players, if they are good enough they will get their chance.
You mean, other than when he said he would be investing money into the club?
Still would have so many reservations about de Boer.
"For a team centred around a passing philosophy, the only way they were going to get through the back line was by individual quality"
"Truly, if De Boer genuinely believes Sunday’s opponents were ultra-defensive and that Ajax deserved to win, he is delusional. Hopefully he is just lying for the cameras.
This is typical of the coach this season – he is completely unwilling to acknowledge the failings of his strategy and his team. Excuses such as the age of his squad, defensive nature of opponents and bad luck have been used this term."
Sound familiar? And that's in the bloody Dutch league, not the Prem.
"For a team centred around a passing philosophy, the only way they were going to get through the back line was by individual quality"
"Truly, if De Boer genuinely believes Sunday’s opponents were ultra-defensive and that Ajax deserved to win, he is delusional. Hopefully he is just lying for the cameras.
This is typical of the coach this season – he is completely unwilling to acknowledge the failings of his strategy and his team. Excuses such as the age of his squad, defensive nature of opponents and bad luck have been used this term."
Sound familiar? And that's in the bloody Dutch league, not the Prem.
Link the whole story please, makes an interesting read.
http://www.benefoot.net/benelook-ajax-coach-frank-de-boer-needs-a-reality-check/
As Yassin Ayoub slotted home in the 87th minute on Sunday, it confirmed a disappointing result for Ajax that is all too familiar for Frank de Boer. In five years as manager of the Amsterdam side which include four consecutive league titles, the coach has never beaten FC Utrecht in the Galgenwaard.
While it was the first goal of the game and there was still time left, it seemed there was no chance of the Dutch giants clinching the important equaliser as they had never looked like finding a goal throughout the game.
The clash offered the table toppers the chance to extend their lead over reigning champions and main rivals PSV, who dropped two points to Roda JC the previous night.
“I’ve seen a team with real desire,” De Boer reflected after the game, looking to explain his side’s inability to find the net. “You all think it’s easy to get through such a wall. The solution was to play with more one-on-one duels or play more opportunistically, but I have not seen the latter.”
“You saw it with PSV against Roda. It’s not easy against an extremely defensive team.”
“Extremely defensive” – De Boer’s categorisation of struggling Roda JC and mid-table FC Utrecht.
By that summary, you would imagine Ajax came up against a brick wall of an opponent. An utterly conservative and restrictive team intent only on preventing them from getting through on goal, with no intention of creating chances themselves. The coach said after the game that he was not looking to make excuses and that Ajax were lacking a creative spark – the latter is true, but his assertion of a regressive FC Utrecht is completely false (as false as his assessment of the reasons behind PSV’s failings).
If one team looked like scoring, it was Ajax, is the former Netherlands coach’s suggestion, but the opposite is true. The “Sons of the Gods” failed to have a single attempt in the second half of Sunday’s game. Utrecht had five. To label them an “extremely defensive” team is of course not a real criticism, but it suggests De Boer – publicly at least – is completely ignoring the true weaknesses of his team.
Utrecht are not a defensively focused side, they are a well organised one. The visitors’ strategy on Sunday seemed to hinge on right winger Anwar El Ghazi beating defenders in one-on-ones, but with him completely isolated, he found himself faced with a line of three defenders at times. The same went for Amin Younes on the left. Arek Milik’s movement was non-existent, while Davy Klaassen failed to make many connections with team-mates in advanced areas. For a team centred around a passing philosophy, the only way they were going to get through the back line was by individual quality – something De Boer looks to discourage over team moves due to the increase in risk. Utrecht thrive on that. If they can isolate and then double up on players, they easily cover for the deficiencies of their own defenders. Ajax did half of the work for them as there was a complete disconnect through the attack.
His side lined up in a 3-4-3 as a way to gain an advantage against Utrecht’s expected 4-4-2 line up – looking at the game in numbers and his players as pawns, as opposed to tuning his side to prepare them for the style of play they were actually faced with. If Erik Ten Hag thought this was “a tactical game of chess”, then De Boer was a rookie coming up against Bobby Fischer.
Truly, if De Boer genuinely believes Sunday’s opponents were ultra-defensive and that Ajax deserved to win, he is delusional. Hopefully he is just lying for the cameras.
This is typical of the coach this season – he is completely unwilling to acknowledge the failings of his strategy and his team. Excuses such as the age of his squad, defensive nature of opponents and bad luck have been used this term. De Boer has the luxury this time around of being able to improve on his team. No first team regulars left during the summer, while Nemanja Gudelj was signed from AZ and Mitchell Dijks returned when he was bought back from Willem II.
The opening Europa League game this season against Celtic in Amsterdam was a pivotal example. That time his side really did come up against an ultra-defensive side, but still managed to concede two goals and relied on a red card and a lucky goal to secure a 2-2 draw. Cross after cross was thrown into the box, with his players spread out and never moving into pockets of space to bring any kind of intricacy to their play. Ajax’s last attack of the game was practically identical to their first – ball out wide from the midfield, cross in and watch the attack falter. It was easy work for a relatively weak Celtic team to keep them quiet.
Ronny Deila was gutted not to take three points and he was right to be so. De Boer, on the other hand, decided to defend his insistence on Ajax’s wing-based game. “Celtic parked two buses,” he said. “It’s not just the first ball you need to think about, sometimes it drops well for you and you can create a chance from there.” It never worked and it never looked like working, but still he failed to address the issue during the game and had no interest in admitting that the set up was incorrect – this assessment can be applied to four of the other five of Ajax’s Europa League games.
What De Boer says in public and what he really thinks may be two different things, of course, and hopefully they are. But that not enough has changed over the last few months to correct issues which have been blatant since the start of the season is worrying.
He has been relying on the same tactical tweaks over the last five years. They worked the first few times and were impressive changes – throwing a midfielder on as a false No.9 and allowing for more effective passing up the pitch – but they are irrelevant now due to the difference in personnel. He needs to find a new way to inject a fresh style and strategy into his team and for the last year and a half he has failed miserably.
For a coach many (this writer included) touted as a future star, things are looking grim. Perhaps complacency is to blame, with De Boer now having entered his sixth year as Ajax boss, but with a summer move looking likely, he really has to bring something new to this team heading into the second half of the season. Otherwise that fifth league title, as well as the coveted jobs in Europe, will pass him by.
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