TelcontarTargaryen Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Not many stars, but I would love it if that Hungarian, Bulgarian and Serbian guy could be moulded at grew to become at least quality squad players. Wishes often do not come true on FM but a man can dream... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 May 2031 Four games in May and our main focus is on the second leg match in Turin. Remaining Eredivisie fixture list is rather difficult and offers strong opponents, but the results don’t matter, so we can ignore what happens there. We started with a home game against Vitesse and there was a hint of revenge in this match, because we lost our away game against them 1:4, if some of you remember that - our only defeat this Eredivisie season. The first half was a rather uneventful one, until Quenten Hose had a good chance to score just before the half-time whistle, but the right winger hit the post from a good position. The second half was a little bit better - Stanis Idumbo Muzambo and John Meeuwis missed their chances, but we got a penalty after a Vitesse player handballed in the box and Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot. Peter Misidjan returned from an injury and was available for selection for this match and he came on in the second half to score after a good team move in 88’ and that made it 2:0. A solid win in the end. Our attack looked much better after the break. And there was the day - the second leg in Turin, against Juventus, with a decent 2:1 lead from home in our bag. The players looked rested enough, although we had to do without Nikita Tamm (who picked up a knock in the Vitesse game) and Ognjen Rajkovic. I started with the same tactics that proved to be successful against Chelsea, but I have to say that Juventus dominated the first half - they a few good chances, but also eight corners in the first period and 70-80% of those corners led to a dangerous header that they won in our box and that was a serious threat. We had a quiet first half ,but in 41’ Dramane Guehi had a great chance to score, but his shot was held by the Juventus keeper and this was the sort of chance you need to take in the game against teams like Juventus. Unfortunately, Juventus used their opportunities better in the second half - Sandro Veloso scored their first goal in 55’ and stunned us with a chip in 88’ that gave them aggregate win over two legs. Our chances dried up in the second half and eventually our shooting was just 5/2 in this game - nowhere near good enough to get anything from an away match and Juventus were deserved winners, while our campaign ended in the semi final. We then managed to beat AZ Alkmaar quite comfortably. I say, comfortably, because we took the lead after a fairly even first half and Dramane Guehi doubled his tally in the second half to make it 2:0. At the same time AZ managed to get some shots in, but didn’t create any real chances in this match and although we didn’t have a dominating performance, we didn’t look under pressure either. Home fans obviously helped (and/or AZ just didn’t dare to take too many risks in an away game). A bit bland for a derby, but so it was. The last game in Eredivisie was the Topper derby at Philips Stadion. We obviously wanted to win because it was against our rivals, but PSV were undefeated in the league since we beat them in January and looked very confident, so perhaps it wasn’t a wonder that they managed to score the first goal - their attacking midfielder Fran Villalba looked well marked by Olivier Aertssen, but still managed to put a places shot next to the post. We then wasted a number of chances in the first half and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson was denied by the crossbar with his attempt from some way out, so the first half finished 0:1. Hlynsson found the net with a nice volley in 57’ to score an equaliser. We had initiative for the most of the second half, but couldn’t find the winner. PSV’s left-back Kevin Paredes was sent off after a dreadful two-footed lunge on Stanis Idumbo Muzambo in 78’ and then we obviously had an initiative and in the end John Meeuwis managed to score the late winner to put the final touches to our pretty wonderful season. Tough match, but great second half performance and a dramatic winner that sent the fans home happy. Players and Tactics Strong opponents in May demanded less rotation from the squad, but we fared well against other Eredivisie teams and there were some good performances from the players. Just a few injury problems in May - we still missed Ognjen Rajkovic, but Nikita Tamm and Amourricho van Axel Dongen had also problems with minor traumas and had to skip some games. Some landmarks were also reached in May - Dramane Guehi’s second goal against AZ Alkmaar was the 100th league goal of his career. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - one of the few players who had a decent match against Juventus, but he also scored from the spot against Vitesse and was the man of the match in the PSV game with a number of chances he created. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. PSV Eindhoven - expertly placed shot by the young striker that won us the derby. Eredivisie We have a huge lead in the table at the end of the season. 23 points - wow. FC Groningen managed to hold on to their second place and FC Utrecht can be really happy with their season - finished 3rd in the league and won the KNVB Beker. Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven finished in Europa League places. Go Ahead Eagles and NAC Breda were relegated - no surprises there. FC Twente managed to keep their place after the play-offs, but I still wonder why they underperform so often and find themselves perilously close to relegation in every other season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 Competitions We won our tenth Eredivisie title in a row (a small reminder, that I’ve been managing Ajax for ten years already) and this time it was a rather impressive campaign. We pretty much ran away with the title after the New Year and clinched it at the beginning of April, so the second part of the season was pretty relaxed. It was a great Champions League campaign. Reaching the quarter finals counts as a very successful season for us, but the semi final is quite exceptional. Perhaps we had a bit of luck to get Hertha in the first knockout round, but beating Chelsea proved that we deserved to be there and with this squad managed to be very competitive until the end. We were called the biggest overachievers of the competition as a result. Champions League final was Italy’s inner affair and Inter beat Juventus in the final (ex-Ajax player Gabrial Misehouy scored a goal for the winners!) Domestic cups continue to escape from us and we were beaten twice by FC Utrecht - firstly in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and then in the KNVB Beker Final. It means that FC Utrecht seems to have a real knack for the cup silverware. My inability to win the KNVB Beker two seasons in a row was the main criticism from the board and players alike. Jong Ajax had a pretty good season with 7th place finish in Keuken Kampioen Divisie, while our academy youngsters finished 2nd in the table after AZ Alkmaar U-19. Players The main question before the season was our goalkeeper and how Riswan Sinaga will do in goal after Mert Alegoz departed to FC Barcelona. In the end the young goalkeeper did fairly well - not an exceptional season, but sold enough and he finished as runner-up in the Eredivisie Goalkeeper of the Year category. Not bad for a 19 years old bloke. He developed well throughout the season and has a much better ability for next year. Our defence looked solid throughout the season, although a serious injury to Ognjen Rajkovic left us a little bit thin in the centre-back department. On the other hand Jasper Vogels provided cover for both full-back positions and in the second part of the season young Giorgio Jongebloet started to get first team appearances, so that helped to increase our options. Prince Aning sometimes featured for the Holland national team (and sometimes didn’t) so in and out of international football. Our key defensive players start to get into their prime years, so I expect them to mix ability with experience in the coming seasons. In midfield we were thin. Team captain Kenneth Taylor carried a huge load. Young Claidel Muringen filled the BBMs role - wasn’t exceptional, but wasn’t terrible either and more attacking midfielders Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and Mohamed Tahiri had to drop to deeper positions once in a while to provide rotation options. Hlynsson excelled as DLPd in several games, so that was a nice surprise, but at some point I included some youngsters like Ruben Sergio or Jaap Prinsen who were clearly not ready for first team football. Attacking midfield seemed to work the best, even Nikita Tamm was great in the first half of the season (but his form dropped dramatically since March). We had the most options in attacking midfield and at some point it seemed that however I rotated, we still managed to create chances and score goals. Young winger Quenten Hose emerged to the AMR IWa position this season. In attack Dramane Guehi was clearly our best striker, but John Meeuwis also scored 19 goals for the club and I had the luxury to rotate even our best players. Guehi was away at AFCON in January and our attack didn’t skip a beat. With two such good players in front of him, Koen Verlijsdonk struggled to get into the team. Eredivisie Awards I rotated a lot and that left a mark to our award season. Olivier Aertssen managed to collect 30 games in Eredivisie and retained his Golden Boot award, but my rotation policy and AFCON didn’t allow Dramane Guehi to get enough goals to reach top three in the top goalscorer charts. As I already mentioned Riswan Sinaga was the runner-up in the Goalkeeper of the Year category and we made a clean sweep in the Young Player of the Year list. After a brief pause I was again selected as the manager’s manager of the year by my peers. Elsewhere in the World Meanwhile, Leicester City surprised everyone by winning the Premier League again after 15 years (wow!) 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blodyxe Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 10 amazing years! Tremendous job, and hopefully, you'll get the big ears in the future. May I ask, who has been your favorite player in the save? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 On 17/02/2024 at 17:07, Blodyxe said: 10 amazing years! Tremendous job, and hopefully, you'll get the big ears in the future. May I ask, who has been your favorite player in the save? Thanks. About Champions League - it's not the main target. Obviously I try to do as well as I can, but because my youth only policy and transfer policy that allows best players to leave I know that I'm always handicapped compared to big teams and sometimes it's just too difficult to compete with them. I know that I do most of the times everything right tactically, but if the individual level of players is so much higher in the other team, it's really difficult to prevent all goals you concede. I have won the Champions League in previous versions of FM with the same 'youth only' strategy. I believe I won in FM16, but in FM20 I reached to the semi-final once. Here in FM22 I've got to the semi final several times, so it builds a platform, but let's see how it goes. About favourite player - that's a tough question. From the initial group of players it's difficult to choose, because in almost every FM and every Ajax save you have a lot of interest in the players from big clubs and several of the players are sold in early years, so Ryan Gravenberch? Because he has a great potential that is obvious from the start and I managed to keep him around for some years to get the maximum out of him before allowing him to move forward with his career. But I also felt attached to Daley Blind and Davy Klaassen, because they were true leaders on the pitch and remained in the club almost to the end of their careers (and Klaassen continued to be part of our coaching staff after hanging his boots). From regens I have to say that Dramane Guehi has reached the highest ability level so far - driven personality, a lot of talent, experience on both club and international level. He's the first player in the team who has been touted to have around £100m transfer value and because of that he's probably the biggest talent who has come from our youth ranks into the first team in those 10 seasons I've been in charge. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 Summer 2031 Transfer Window After reaching the Champions League semi finals in Spring, I knew that there will be some departures this Summer. Quick look at our squad list indicated that we have a number of players reaching their prime and being in the Ajax first eleven at 24-25 years of age, it’s the right moment to step up and move to Premier League, Serie A or La Liga if the player wants to further his career. The first unavoidable loss was Dramane Guehi - the African striker moved to PSG in June for the club record £75m + clauses. He was probably the best player (by ability) in the team and way too good for Eredivisie. At some point he was valued for around £100m, but it’s always tricky to get an actual bid for that amount and I settled for the offer that PSG made. I’m not overly worried about our attack, because we still have John Meeuwis who can contribute and develop in Ajax for a couple of seasons, at least. The second departure was Jasper Vogels - a versatile defender who went to Everton for £30,5m - a decent fee for him and I hope he’ll do well in the Premier League. We have a few younger options for full-back positions to replace him. We also loaned out youngsters Anass Sarpong and Loet van Fessem for the next season to get them some first team experience. The Club We have improvements for training facilities and youth facilities in progress this Summer and it looks like the board is willing to invest into the club, so they proposed to increase coaching staff wages (a thought that I was delighted to accept). With training facilities and youth facilities improved, I also managed to convince the board to increase the junior coaching budget. Our finances are huge. Selling Dramane Guehi and Jasper Vogels in June for a combined £105m brought our bank balance to £1,2b and so I received a curious message that the club has directed a large portion of those funds into investment reserves. I’ve never seen anything like that, but more than £300m disappeared from our books and I have no clue where they are or if we ever can use it if we need to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 Squad Update 2031 Goalkeepers We have only one true first team goalkeeper in Riswan Sinaga (although Calvin Francis is pushing up from Jong Ajax). He doesn’t seem exceptional attribute-wise, but he’s surely talented and only 20 years old. Despite that young age he played 48 games in the last season and showed remarkable fitness (his injury susceptibility is below average) so he’s quite reliable for the whole season. Defence Here we have a solid first team trio that’s my preference for important matches - Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi on the right, Olivier Aertssen in the middle and Prince Aning on the left. Left centre-back position is shared between Can Tas and Ognjen Rajkovic (and mainly decided by how tall the opposition strikers are, because Can Tas isn’t really an aerial power). The main strength in our defence is that key players are reaching their best years of football. The main weakness, however, is that those influential players have usually just ‘balanced’ personalities and aren’t suitable mentors. Jasper Vogels left this Summer and we will probably miss his versatility, but instead we have several youngsters stepping up to fill the ranks. Giorgio Jongebloet featured in the last season as well and the 18 years old right-back has played in 12 Eredivisie games - he’s resilient, determined, brave, aggressive and with a good work rate, so he has all the necessary qualities to become a great player. In the central defence we have Rik Vos, who spent a year on loan in Belgium. Vos looks like a good prospect - no real weaknesses, and he’s tall (!) compared to most of our centre-backs. On the left side I needed a replacement for Vogels and promoted 16 years old Slovak talent Richard Svec to the first team. The boy is arguably not ready for first team football, but he’s another defender with excellent determination, teamwork and work rate attributes, so I expect him to develop quickly. Midfield No real changes here - Kenneth Taylor and Claidel Muringen are our go-to pair in midfield. Mohamed Tahiri can play as an attacking midfielder, but proved in last season that he can fill the BBMs role, too. Young Ruben Sergio is here just to fill the numbers and (perhaps) provide some resting minutes for Taylor if the game is decided, but in times of need I much prefer to drop Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson down to DLPd if Taylor is not available. Attacking Midfield At the moment attacking midfield looks like our strongest area on the pitch. On the right we have Amourricho van Axel Dongen who can score and assist. Quenten Hose has provided some competition for him for the place in the line-up - he’s young, quick, agile and good with the ball. Hose can be young, but he scored 6 goals and assisted 7 more in Eredivisie last season. In the middle we have Icelandic international Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson (possibly our most creative players and also our corner taker), Stanis Idumbo Muzambo (probably the best player with the ball) and Peter Misidjan who is just 22 years old, but it feels like he’s been around forever. On the left we have Estonian Nikita Tamm (who plays as IFs), a very inconsistent player, although his attributes are great, and South Korean international Ja-Ryong Kim (who is a Ws) - a player with great flair and the one who created most chances in Eredivisie games in the last season. There are no really young prospects in the first team at the moment, but there’s some interest in our key players and if there’s an opening in the January, we have some options to come in from Jong Ajax. Strikers Dramane Guehi has left, so John Meeuwis has to carry the load this season. He’s a wonderful talent - just 20 years old but finished the last season with 19 goals from 16 starts - but he can’t play as a CFa, so we go with PFa with both him and Koen Verlijsdonk. Verlijsdonk can certainly expect to get more minutes this season, as his game time was rather limited last year. He has certain weaknesses (like low rate, not too accurate passing and poor concentration), but he’s quick and can score and has a lot of flair, so that’s a start. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 August 2031 Fixtures and Results The Johan Cruijff Schaal final was a bit of a revenge match because of the two finals we lost against FC Utrecht in the last season, but this time we didn’t give them any chances - two goals in the first half put us in charge and FC Utrecht were sinking without trace. Mohamed Tahiri headed in from a corner in 76’ to make it 3:0. It was a very convincing win because we had 64% possession and FC Utrecht didn’t get any chances in the full ninety minutes. An excellent start to our season. The first league game was at home and Sparta Rotterdam came to visit. Nothing too difficult on paper and we should have won that easily, but we couldn’t find a goal at first - we had a number of set pieces and even created chances from them, but couldn’t finish them off and at the other end of the pitch Sparta had two decent opportunities as well (perhaps partly because Olivier Aertssen served his suspension and defensive partnership of Rajkovic and Can Tas didn’t work together too well). Things got easier in the second half when Sparta’s Jürgen Braun was dismissed for a dangerous tackle on Quenten Hose and in the final ten minutes we finally were on the mark - John Meeuwis broke the deadlock and Kenneth Taylor wrapped things up with a penalty in injury time. In the end we had 26 shots with 3.67 xG - should have finished better. Trip to visit the newly promoted SC Cambuur was an equally difficult feat - Nikita Tamm scored with an accurate volley to give us the lead, but Prince Aning was carried off the pitch with an injury soon after the goal and it affected our match. 17 years old Richard Svec came on for him to make his first team debut. We had some good chances to extend our lead, but couldn’t finish (again!) - Olivier Aertssen headed against the crossbar and Nikita Tamm wasted a clear cut chance in the second half. We weren’t in trouble defensively and didn’t concede any chances, but I would have much preferred the second goal. The last match in August was the Noord-Hollandse derby at home. Our main concern was left defence - Prince Aning’s injury that he suffered in the last league game was a pretty serious one and sprained knee ligaments will keep him out for 4-6 weeks, so Richard Svec (who had just turned 17) started as our left full-back. We started well and soon Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi delivered a low cross into the six yard box where Nikita Tamm was ready to score with a simple tap-in. Despite our lead there was a certain anxiousness in the team and in 17’ AZ’s Ludwe Sibiya got through our defence, only to be denied by Riswan Sinaga. AZ’s equaliser came out of nowhere, though, when their midfielder Aymen Barkok hit the scorcher into our top corner from 27 metres. The penalty in 33’ restored our lead and our position improved a lot in 43’ when AZ’s Manfred Ugalde received his second yellow card and was sent off. We dominated possession in the second half (obviously, because we were 11 against 10), but couldn’t turn it into goals, even though we created some good chances and Olivier Aertssen headed against the crossbar from a corner. Substitutions looked risky, because most of our bench seemed nervous despite our lead. It remained 2:1 and I was pleased with a win, but I feel our second half performance was a disappointment. We should have grabbed AZ by the neck and finished them off after Ugalde’s dismissal, but we failed to do that. Overall I’m pleased with our results in August and to start with three wins in Eredivisie marks a good start. Players and Tactics Nothing interesting to report tactically there. Players have done what was expected of them and defensively we’ve looked fairly good. Prince Aning’s injury is an obvious concern before September. Nikita Tamm has been impressive in attack - he has two league goals in August and it looks like the form he had in the first half of the last season has returned. At least he’s getting into the right positions and taking his chances. John Meeuwis has started all four games and so far he’s done OK. Stanis Idumbo Muzambo and Ja-Ryong Kim have not featured as much, but that’s an extra gear we have in the coming weeks. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - since that friendly against Arsenal where he scored a brace he’s been outstanding - two penalties in the competitive matches and one assist to add. He’s been excellent in every single game so far. Goal of the Month: Nikita Tamm vs. FC Utrecht - not so much because of the simple finish, but because of the cheeky backheel pass from John Meeuwis that set Tamm up for the goal Eredivisie Three clubs have three straight wins so far, with PSV Eindhoven and Vitesse sharing the lead with us. Feyenoord lost a match against FC Utrecht. AZ Alkmaar has had a long Summer in Conference League qualification and their Eredivisie form has suffered because of that and last season’s sensation FC Groningen is also low in the table. Champions League The draw landed us in the group G with Barcelona, AS Roma and AGF (that is Aarhus from Denmark). While the Danish are way out of their depth in this group, AS Roma are tricky opponents and like always, away fixtures (and ability to get at least a point out of those) are key. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted March 10 Author Share Posted March 10 September 2031 Five games in September. The Champions League starts with a must win home game against AGF, but the Eredivisie schedule offers some tricky away fixtures against mid-table teams. My main concern is not to lose points until Prince Aning is fit again (he could be back for the Barcelona match, but we’ll know in a few weeks). It was nice to see our loan player Loet van Fessem start for ADO Den Haag in our first game of the month, but it was he who lost possession to John Meeuwis and we scored a quick goal in 12’ to take charge of the match. ADO equalised with a good header from close range, but a penalty restored our lead before half-time and the second penalty, awarded in the second half, made it sure. Penalties surely helped us, because we didn’t create too many opportunities from open play and ADO-s 5-2-3 WB formation packed their box with five players at most times. The home game against AGF turned out to be a walkover. We scored from a set piece early on and went to the half-time with a 2:0 lead, but the defining factor was that AGF had two men sent off in the first half, so we cruised after the break and finished the match with five goals. Kenneth Taylor produced the best goal of the night with a thunderous strike from 20 metres. We continued this form at Heerenveen - I anticipated a much more difficult away game, but I suppose Heerenveen made some serious tactical errors, because their defence looked all over the place and we found gaps and spaces between the lines and defenders easily. Finishing was excellent as well, Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and John Meeuwis scored a brace and Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi found himself at the score sheet too. After two impressive results we hosted Fortuna Sittard at Johan Cruijff Arena. This game had ups and downs for as, starting off with a missed penalty by Kenneth Taylor. Then Hlynsson and Meeuwis combined two good goals in four minutes to give us a solid lead, but Fortuna stunned us with a counter-attack in 30’. Because of that our second half was a little bit nervous and our third goal kept itself waiting until Rajkovic scored from a corner to put this result beyond doubt. Decent win. Away game at Camp Nou was not supposed to be easy. I used our Champions League setup, but it still resulted in conceding two goals in the first 20 minutes. Barcelona players were just so technically gifted and managed to dismantle our defence with their measured passes. One good attack from us in 40’ made it 1:2 before half-time and gave us some hope for the second half, that if we’re lucky we might steal a point from here. This didn’t happen - we kept our defence more-less in order after half-time, but couldn’t create anything dangerous (just 3 key passes in the whole game and 3/2 shots for us), so a bit disappointing result, but at least we didn’t suffer more serious beating and we kept the final score respectable. Tactics and Players Tactically our positive 4-2-3-1 formation has gotten us through from domestic games easily. I expected tricky away matches and perhaps somewhat stronger opposition from ADO Den Haag and sc Heerenveen, but we felt fairly comfortable against them. The Champions League setup was tested against FC Barcelona, but the results were inconclusive - we were pretty much dominated in the game, but we got a goal in an away match, so it hints that in the right circumstances we might stun big teams with this tactic. The players have done incredibly well. Our main concern was Richard Svec at the left-back position, but the youngster has done OK to fill the gap in our team and has developed incredibly in the process. His performances are mediocre, because he’s not really in the first team level and I ordered him to play it safe and take less risks with the ball, so clearly his impact in attack is much lower than Prince Aning’s, but that’s OK. His main job has been to avoid mistakes defensively and not to give away easy chances, and he’s done really well in that regard in Eredivisie games. Aning should be fully fit for our first league game in October, so we don’t have to rely on Svec too much in the future. I’m happy with the progress of both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri in midfield - both have trained well and performed OK, too. Kenneth Taylor is our leading scorer in midfield with 6 goals, but he has got many chances from the penalty spot, so that explains it. Nikita Tamm has continued to find a goal and he has earned us some penalties, too, so good form continues for him. John Meeuwis has scored six goals in the league. He’s a different kind of forward than Dramane Guehi - Meeuwis plays as PFa and doesn’t contribute much in build-up, but he’s there to finish off his chances and his composure has been evident in September. Player of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson - scored four goals in September and was really driving our attack forward. Even in our worst match against Barcelona it was Hlynsson who managed to create a goal. The Icelander is in fine form. Goal of the Month: Kenneth Taylor vs. AGF - a lot of penalties for Taylor this season, but this was beautifully struck from 20 metres. Eredivisie Six games played and we’re at the top of the table, but Vitesse have started incredibly well and share the top with 18 points from their matches. So far it’s been clear that some of the contestants (AZ Alkmaar, FC Utrecht) are not up to the challenge for the title this season, but the competition is still fairly tight. Champions League Group G Quite as expected - we won at home against AGF easily and struggled at Camp Nou. Important games are the ones against AS Roma. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted March 17 Author Share Posted March 17 October 2031 Fixtures and Results Only four games in October, but difficult matches against PSV Eindhoven and AS Roma. The Topper derby brought an almost full crowd to Johan Cruijff Arena and we started this match well - Ognjen Rajkovic headed in an indirect free kick and we took charge of the game, but just two minutes later PSV equalised. Amourricho van Axel Dongen squared for Hlynsson who made it 2:1 to give us the lead at the break, but in truth it was a game with just a few good chances for both teams. We held our lead in the second half and didn’t look in trouble defensively, but in 67’ Riswan Sinaga made a terrible mistake and played the ball straight to Jason van Duiven who had no problems converting this gift to an equaliser. We couldn’t score another goal and Sinaga’s error meant that spoils were shared in this derby. It has to be said that PSV defended well - we made only nine key passes in this game and John Meeuwis was well isolated in ninety minutes. You could say that PSV came to Amsterdam with a good game plan, it worked somewhat well most of the match and they were helped by a glaring mistake from our goalkeeper, but either way they were happy to get a point from this. I expected a fairly easy game against NEC Nijmegen and our team selection reflected the fact that some of our (younger) players were tired after the international window. There was a scary moment for us in 17’ when NEC’s Amine Essahel went for the ball in our six yard box and tackled it well, but Riswan Sinaga made a great save to keep it out. We went to half-time with a 1:0 lead, courtesy of a simple tap-in from van Axel Dongen. In the second half we were awarded a rather dubious penalty (that was surprisingly upheld by VAR) and when Nikita Tamm slotted in another clear cut chance it looked like NEC was starting to fall apart. However, their best striker from the last season, Conor Noss, headed in to give them a consolation goal. Two-goal win from away game was a decent result nonetheless. That gets us to our crucial home game against AS Roma. I’m happy that we have our best eleven available for those important Champions League games. We started with a positive mentality and took the lead in 12’ - van Axel Dongen’s attempt caused some difficulties to AS Roma goalkeeper Justin Bijlow and John Meeuwis was first to react and tuck it in. Portuguese striker Vitinha was labelled as the danger man for Roma and he showed it in the first half - he was everywhere where anything remotely dangerous happened, had a half-chance (that Riswan Sinaga turned away), won headers in our box and eventually he scored the equaliser after Claidel Muringen lost possession in midfield and allowed AS Roma to build a counter-attack. Vitinha’s skill was evident when he turned away from Can Tas with his first touch and put the ball next to the post calmly. The second half was a hard-fought battle, the one where one goal could be decisive and in this tactical challenge I did better than my counterpart on AS Roma bench - I sent out Ja-Ryong Kim and Quenten Hose and they built a lovely attack through the middle and Hose finished his opportunity nicely - he has wasted a number of chances in Eredivisie games and perhaps hasn’t been in the best form this season, but here the young winger delivered us the winning goal - such an important win, but also a warning that the repeat match in Stadio Olimpico in just two weeks is not going to be easy. The last match against Heracles was an easy one, but finished with a narrow 1:0 win. Our opponents came to Johan Cruijff Arena with a defensive 4-1-4-1 formation and couldn’t pose a real threat in attack. We created a number of chances in the first half, but our right winger Quenten Hose scored just once. In the second half we missed two big chances and hit the post twice, so I criticised our finishing in the post-match team talk. We could have dropped points easily here - Heracles only needed one corner or attempt to find a goal out of nowhere. That’s why we need to make sure earlier in the games. Players and Tactics Nothing to report tactically. Performance-wise we’ve managed to score goals, but struggled to get clean sheets, so there’s something to work on - we just have to keep our concentration up in defence and avoid conceding avoidable goals. Most of the results have come our way, but I’m disappointed with the inconsistency of most of our players and I don’t feel that we play as well as we should. Wingers have been under my special scrutiny in October - Nikita Tamm had one good performance in Nijmegen, but disappeared completely in matches with bigger opponents. Ja-Ryong Kim started against Heracles instead of him, but failed to impress. Quenten Hose scored the winner against AS Roma and Heracles, but at the same time missed more chances in front of goal than I count. Player of the Month: Ognjen Rajkovic - very difficult choice, because we changed so many players in the line-ups and there were just four games, but Rajkovic started against PSV and NEC Nijmegen and was very good in both of those games, getting on the score sheet as well. Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. AS Roma - not because of the finish, but the passing combination that led to the goal and the sheer importance of that win. Eredivisie We still face close competition from Vitesse and PSV Eindhoven. Extremely surprised to see FC Groningen in the relegation zone (the club who’s in the Champions League this season!). SC Cambuur, on the other hand, looks like a clear relegation material. PEC Zwolle are probably the overachievers of the season so far. Champions League So far, so good. The home win against AS Roma helped us enormously. 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Draakon Posted March 22 Author Share Posted March 22 November 2031 Fixtures and Results We started November by hosting Excelsior. It was my 500th game in football management and Excelsior should have been an easy opponent by every sense, but we struggled a lot in this match. Stanis Idumbo Muzambo started as AMCa in midfield, but had to come off with injury in 18’ and we didn’t find our rhythm in the first half. And as it often happens, one mistake made a lot of difference in the game - Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi missed his header and allowed Thierry Ambrose to give Excelsior the lead in 65’ and then we had to push hard to get anything out of this match. Good thing was that the players reacted well - John Meeuwis levelled the game with a simple finish and three minutes later Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot to make it 2:1. A very difficult win, with a performance that left a lot to desire, but we finally turned things around in the last fifteen minutes and I have to be happy with that. I expected a tough game at Stadio Olimpico against AS Roma and it was indeed a difficult challenge for us. The first half finished goalless, even though we were under some pressure in the first ten minutes. Later we managed to level the game somewhat and even found a couple of decent chances in attack, so overall I was slightly encouraged by our performance. It was a different story in the second half - AS Roma found another gear in the final 20 minutes, chances started to come their way and two goals in 78’ and 84’ sealed our fate - we were not too bad defensively for large part of the match, but didn’t threaten enough in attack in the second half and keeping 0:0 was our only hope, but it wasn’t to be. A lot of below-par performances from attacking players. While trips to the northern part of the country could be tricky away games, we returned with a fairly comfortable win this time. FC Groningen looked like a wounded animal - they haven’t strengthened their squad a lot, but competing in the Champions League this season has come with a toll - a lot of (physically) challenging games, defeats that hurt morale and a lot of travelling means they’ve been really poor in Eredivisie as a result and find themselves in the relegation zone after the first ten games. And it was a humbling defeat from us in front of their home fans. I went with a risky option and offered our young striker Koen Verlijsdonk a chance to start and he caused havoc in the FC Groningen defence. Both of our wingers (van Axel Dongen and Tamm) fed Verlijsdonk with well-measured through balls and he was clinical with his finishing and after Tamm curled his attempt into the top corner from 22 metres it was 3:0 in the first half. Verlijsdonk went on to complete a hat-trick in the second half (talk about second best striker!) and the game concluded 4:0. FC Groningen manager Jeroen Esseboom was finally sacked after this defeat and counts as the first casualty of the season. While we rolled over FC Groningen, what happened against FC Twente was a full-blown destruction in the second half - we had a few players that looked a bit tired after the international break and I thought - what the heck - and started with Koen Verlijsdonk again in attack. The first half went pretty much as expected - we had initiative and took the lead, but 1:0 at half time left all possibilities open. However, my positive team talk at the break inspired the team and we ripped them apart in the second half - six goals (including one own goal) in forty-five minutes. Both Koen Verlijsdonk and Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored hat-tricks in this match and we also hit the woodwork four times. Seven goals was perhaps a bit much, because our xG was just 3.86, and FC Twente players’ frustration was palpable, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the pitch and the only downside was their consolation goal, so again we couldn’t keep a clean sheet. I was hopeful before our key match against FC Barcelona, but out of nowhere we were trailing 0:2 after the first ten minutes. Gabriel Martinelli’s attempt from outside of the box went in off the post and then Ronald Araujo headed in from a set piece and we were down by two goals, but we actually didn’t play poorly and at half-time I was disappointed, because it looked like an even game in the first half. We improved even more after the break and created some good chances to ourselves, but failed to finish - Claidel Muringen had the best opportunity of the match, but his attempt was saved and in the end it was Dejan Kulusevski who made it 0:3 with a nice chip over Riswan Sinaga. The final score looks like we were clearly beaten, but actually it was just the quality of finishing that was the difference between the two teams - the stat sheet was pretty close and our xG was even somewhat better than Barcelona’s, but that’s football sometimes. The defeat meant that we can’t catch AS Roma in the group any more and our final place is third - short of the board’s expectations for this season. FC Utrecht away were potentially difficult opponents and in reality they were exactly that. We controlled possession, but struggled to create good moments against their well organised defence and only had one half-chance in the first half. FC Utrecht stunned us with a counter-attack in 58’ and our situation looked dire before substitute Koen Verlijsdonk scored the late equaliser. I was disappointed with the result, but at least we rescued a point here and continued undefeated. Tactics and Players Tactically our focus was with Champions League games. My balanced formation didn’t work in Rome. It offered us a chance or two in the game (perhaps the problem was our finishing), but we lost possession and while we were more-less OK defensively it’s difficult to see that our chances could be good enough with those instructions in the long term. So, we have to change something, but what? Time to contemplate about player roles and instructions and perhaps I’ll get a chance to test it against stronger opposition in a friendly in January. Tactics seemed to work better against FC Barcelona and this defeat was perhaps undeserved. For the moment, at least, I believe that our usual positive 4-2-3-1 should suffice in home games. What has been wonderful to see is our number of goals in Eredivisie. Scoring a lot of goals gives a lot of confidence to players and praise obviously helps to build morale, so big wins over FC Groningen and FC Twente spurred us forward. I have rotated the team a little and minutes are relatively well spread out (except Peter Misidjan who struggles to get starts and Stanis Idumbo Muzambo who has a number of injuries). Situation with Idumbo Muzambo is still unclear - his contract is still about to run out in next Summer; he is a high earner in the squad, but expects significant raise with his new contract, but he’s very injury prone and I’m not sure if he’ll last over 20 games in a season, so he’s more like a rotation option in my mind, but it’s difficult to pay more than £40,000 p/w for that rotation option. We have December to sort out that contract issue, but it better be resolved this time. Good performances attract other clubs. Manchester United are searching for a new midfield playmaker and both Kenneth Taylor and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson have been on the radar of their manager Erik ten Hag. ten Hag came to Amsterdam to watch our match against FC Twente and commented about his interest in signing Hlynsson, I replied to this speculation in press conference that I’m open to discussion when the price is right, so this information has been given the Dutch football media a lot to write about in the past two weeks. Let’s see if it leads to any actual bids in January. Youngsters have continued to surprise at the Eredivisie level. Centre-back Rik Vos made his starting debut against FC Twente and had a good game (at least one comfortably tall centre-back in the squad who keeps on winning headers against most strikers) and Koen Verlijsdonk is not perhaps the match for John Meeuwis according to his attributes, but his two consecutive hat-tricks raised a lot of eyebrows and it’s more difficult to keep him on the bench in the future. At the same time John Meeuwis’ form has dropped significantly and he has just one goal to show for in November. I understand that he’s played against stronger opponents in the Champions League and lost confidence is difficult to find when opposition defence is better, but his poor performance against FC Utrecht showed that something is seriously wrong with him and I have to help him improve. Player of the Month: Koen Verlijsdonk - breath of fresh air in our attack, seven goals and two hat-tricks in November. Goal of the Month: Nikita Tamm vs. FC Groningen - well struck effort from 22 metres Eredivisie We are slowly gaining points on the competitors. PSV Eindhoven and Vitesse made a goalless draw in November and that helped us to get another two points advantage over both of them, but our draw in Utrecht allowed them to get a little closer again. At the bottom of the table it looks like FC Groningen is close to getting away from the relegation zone, but both SC Cambuur and Willem II have got one win in November and the difference is not too big for them. Champions League Our defeat to Barcelona meant that we had a slim hope to qualify, but it required that AGF would beat AS Roma in the other match and it didn’t happen, so our 0:2 away defeat at Olimpico is a decisive factor in the table and we’re third. The last match in Denmark doesn’t change anything in that regard. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted April 12 Author Share Posted April 12 December 2031 Fixtures and Results Six more games this year. We start with a crucial Klassieker derby at De Kuip and on Christmas Eve (sic!) we’ll travel to Arnhem, but the schedule has easier opponents, too, and there’s nothing to play for in our remaining Champions League fixture, so we have opportunities to rotate a lot, if we need or wish to do so. The Klassieker derby was a huge letdown. We had no selection problems and could send out our best team, but Feyenoord were clearly better than us and created chances at the end of the first half. It remained 0:0 at half-time, but in the second half ex-Ajax player David Kalokoh (who moved to Feyenoord after several seasons in Bundesliga) scored the winner for them. I tried to change things tactically, but whatever I tried, it did not make any difference. Our players looked more nervous on the pitch than I would like to see - lack of leadership and determination evident (or perhaps inability to perform under pressure in big games). Our shooting was just 4/2 and our average rating was 6.56 in this game, underlying our lack of threat in attack. Thoroughly embarrassing performance and a lot to think about as a manager. Our trip to Denmark provided a good chance to bounce back from that - I could rotate the team and we ran out clear winners against AGF. A number of goals scored certainly boosted confidence and improved morale. The next league game against PEC Zwolle turned out to be a hard-fought 1:0 win in a match where we were clear favourites. Again, our creativity was not good enough and Zwolle’s defence was surprisingly difficult to break down, but Ja-Ryong Kim provided a moment of magic when he curled his strike into the top corner from 20 metres. I wasn’t happy with our attacking performance, but Kim’s goal proved to be enough to get all three points. In our first KNVB Beker match of the season we managed to beat Fortuna Sittard more comfortably. For whatever reason we were against the Eredivisie side while much easier opponents were drawn against other clubs, but we did fairly well at Johan Cruijff Arena to beat them 3:0. Amourricho van Axel Dongen put us ahead with a volley in the second half and Kenneth Taylor scored with a free kick in 57’, before Fortuna’s left-back Ronald Reus was sent off with his second yellow card. Substitute Stanis Idumbo Muzambo completed the rout in injury time - good game overall and not a lot of complaints from me. Willem II Tilburg are in the relegation zone and it should have been an easy win for us even in an away game, but it wasn’t just the case. Ja-Ryong Kim scored two quick goals for us in the first half, but we then allowed Taichi Hara to score one for Willem II and so the second half was not without some tension for us. We held on to our lead, but I feel it should have been more comfortable. The last match was at Gelredome against Vitesse Arnhem. First I need to say it takes a special kind of idiot to schedule a league game on Christmas Eve at 20:45. Not sure what the people in the Eredivisie office were thinking. Most of the teams played on 23rd, but Feyenoord and NEC Nijmegen were also forced to drag their players out on Christmas Eve. Equally I couldn’t understand why thousands of fans should come to the stadium instead of sitting at the Christmas dinner with their families. Either way, it was a difficult match and Vitesse have been in great form this season so far. We had our defeat in Rotterdam still fresh in mind and I tried to avoid the similar situation where we would be played off the park, so we started with a balanced mentality - a rare occasion in domestic games. We looked good in the first ten minutes and created some half-chances, but Vitesse took the lead in 21’. The first half was actually quite even battle stats-wise, but Vitesse were more clinical with their opportunities and that gave them an edge. However, all of that was to change in 59’ when their left-back Julien Melchior was sent off with a red card after a two-footed tackle on Jermoumi and we could take control of the match after that - we scored two goals, created chances and even though our sloppy defending allowed Vitesse to equalise with 10 men, a late goal from van Axel Dongen made it 3:2 and we returned with a crucial win from away game. Vitesse could really wonder what it could have been without Melchior’s red card - they had control in the game and the win in this game would have brought them to one point from us in the table, but they lost it after the red and now there is a seven points gap before the Winter break. How small details and individual errors change the fate of the campaign. Tactics and Players December offered some different results and feedback on tactical changes. I was confused whether I should use a balanced or positive mentality, because sometimes how it played out on the pitch didn’t actually make a lot of sense. One tactical problem seemed to be the role of John Meeuwis - my coaching staff claimed that he’s now capable of playing as CFa and I started him as a complete forward in some games, but the performances suffered (although Dramane Guehi excelled in my setup in the same role). The bigger problem seemed to be inconsistent performances overall, especially in the games we struggled and I suspect it has something to do with some players getting too nervous in big games or when we were under pressure. My shouts had effect sometimes, and sometimes didn’t but the mental pressure seemed to hamper some players a lot. The positive is that we have a full squad fit at the moment, everybody has trained well and younger players have developed enormously, so hopefully we’ll improve in the second half of the season. Our goal scoring is well distributed between players. John Meeuwis had just one goal in December and his total is 11 in all competitions, Kenneth Taylor has 10 (but most of them are penalties), the others have less. I’d be surprised if anyone could get to 20 goals this season. John Meeuwis was selected as the European Golden Boy at the end of the year Player of the Month: Ja Ryong Kim - Korean winger hasn’t really shone this season, but scored some important goals in December Goal of the Month: Ja-Ryong Kim vs. PEC Zwolle - curled into the top corner from 20 metres. Youth Intake Preview That’s quite promising, but let’s wait until March and see what there really is to offer. Eredivisie We have 44 points with 17 games and that’s actually fantastic points total, but a number of other clubs have had a strong first half of the season as well. Champions League So, we finished third in our group and will continue in Europa League, where our first knockout round opponent will be Astana (damn long travel). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted April 16 Author Share Posted April 16 January 2032 Fixtures and Results Four games in January and two of them against Heracles Almelo, and we meet Vitesse again with just a couple of weeks since our last encounter at Christmas. After our fantastic win over Vitesse we met Heracles in Eredivisie and returned with a 1:2 defeat. It was a disappointing game - we started with our positive 4-2-3-1 formation and didn’t underestimate them in any way, but were defensively fragile in the first half and after we conceded a goal from a corner I switched to a balanced mentality. It brought us level at half-time, but then we conceded another goal from a free kick in the second half and that was it. I was fairly upset with the team - two goals conceded from set pieces and we didn’t do enough in attack to create chances. Heracles could congratulate themselves, because they did well enough to contain our attacks and deserved a good result from here. In the next match, however, we took a good 1:0 win over Vitesse - Hlynsson scored after a nice combination in the first half and that was enough to secure all three points. We hit the woodwork twice, but it didn’t matter. Our defence was much better in this match and we didn’t allow Vitas to create any real chances, so well controlled from us until the end. Three days later we had a chance to take revenge on Heracles and we were more convincing at home than we had been in the away game - Hlynsson scored from the spot, Quenten Hose doubled our lead after the break and although Jonas Figge scored from a corner (again a set piece!) in 59’, we did enough this time to win the game and move forward into the KNVB Beker quarter final. The last game in January was a bit let-off again performance-wise, but at least the result came out right. After a drab first half Olivier Aertssen managed to head against the crossbar from a corner and Sparta’s Olvido Fer tried to make a clearance, but hammered the ball into his own net. Soon after the goal Sparta’s Brandon Pierrick received a red card for his hard tackle on Ja-Ryong Kim and in 82’ Aertssen headed in from another corner to make it 2:0. I stick to my argument that our performance was actually below-par, but a 2:0 win from an away game counts as a solid enough result. Tactics and Players In those four games we’ve been a bit unimpressive in attack and creating chances - not too much wrong defensively (except defending set pieces against Heracles), but we have around 60% possession in every game and with that much ball we should be able to create better chances. John Meeuwis is just a shadow of himself and looks completely out of shape - a goal in our first game, but below average performances after that. Ja-Ryong Kim hasn’t impressed either and our other wingers haven’t been so sharp either. It’s good we’ve been at least defensively sound most of the games. Prince Aning has been injured after the first match and he’ll be out pretty much until the end of February. Richard Svec did well enough so far in those games (especially impressed with him against a strong Vitesse side), but February will bring more difficult opponents and I’m again a little bit worried of how he’ll do in the long run. Aning’s injuries might turn out to be costly for us this season. Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - two really good performances against Vitesse and Sparta, also managed to score a goal Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Heracles Almelo - well placed shot, a true striker’s finish to level the game for us. I can’t understand why he couldn’t continue from this strike in the next matches. Transfer Window I made two decisions in this transfer window. The first one was to allow Nikita Tamm to leave for Chelsea in a bid of £48m. The Estonian winger has earned this chance and it was a decent fee for him. Ja-Ryong Kim will get more game time on our left flank as a result and Amourricho van Axel Dongen can switch over to left as well. I’m excited to see how young Anass Sarpong will develop on loan and he’ll probably get a chance in the first team after this Summer. The second decision was to send our young centre-back Rik Vos to PEC Zwolle on loan until the end of the season. Our usual Aertssen-Can Tas-Rajkovic rotation should be enough to cover the centre-back position and Vos could benefit from more first team game time. A number of Jong Ajax players also left - they had contracts running out in Summer and I set them all free to release in January and when clubs came in I allowed them leave early. Our reserve team is somewhat unbalanced because of that, but it will be this way only until March when the new batch of youngsters will come in. Eredivisie We still have a decent lead in the table and the top five are somewhat moved away from others. At the bottom it looks like SC Cambuur and Willem II struggle to retain their place in the top tier. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted April 20 Author Share Posted April 20 February 2032 Fixtures and Results February has 29 days in 2032, but those days are packed with fixtures for us - eight games this month, so a football match in every three games or so, and to make things more difficult our squad that is available for selection has diminished - Nikita Tamm has left to England, Rik Vos is away on loan, Prince Aning is injured for at least a couple of more weeks; Amourricho van Axel Dongen suffered concussion in training and has to keep it easy for two weeks and Koen Verlijsdonk caught flu and was sent home for two weeks by our club doctor. We’ve enjoyed a relatively clean bill of health so far, but that’s not the case in February, it seems. And the fixture list itself offers some challenges - we got Feyenoord in the KNVB Beker quarter final - another Klassieker derby at De Kuip (a chance to revenge our defeat in December, but probably a really tough match for us), then away derby against PSV Eindhoven before we host Feyenoord at Johan Cruijff Arena. The rest of the Eredivisie games look easier and Astana in Europa League shouldn’t be a serious threat, but the trip to Kazakhstan is an exhausting eight hour flight in both directions (+ adjusting to time difference) so that will leave its mark on the squad with such a packed schedule. We started with probably the easiest game - relegation candidates SC Cambuur at home. SC Cambuur have been the yoyo club in the past few seasons, bouncing between Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie and it should have been an easy game for us. We started well and took the lead after Olivier Aertssen headed in from a corner, but two minutes after scoring Aertssen picked up his second yellow card and was sent off. Playing with 10 men against 11 made it much more challenging, but we started to find more chances in the second half (and wasted some of them) and Kenneth Taylor drove it low from 20 metres to double our lead. In the final 15 minutes Cambuur finally started to take more men forward in attacks and found good chances as well - Riswan Sinaga made a couple of great saves and Frank Stromsnes headed in from point blank range to score for SC Cambuur in 85’, but it was a little it too late for them and we managed to keep it at 2:1. Happy with three points, but performance could have been somewhat better - we could have scored our third goal early in the second half and should have been better in defence, so might have avoided being under pressure late in the game. FC Utrecht were a strong opponent, too, but they don’t look like title contenders this season and went through major change in December - their manager Robert Maaskant chose to quit and move for the Southampton post and FC Utrecht called up no other than David De Gea for their vacant post. The legendary Spanish goalkeeper has some experience in football management in Ligue 1, but it’s the first time I’m head to head against him. At first FC Utrecht didn’t look like much under the new management - we controlled possession in the first half and it led to two goals from Ja-Ryong Kim and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. They changed more attacking in the second half and switched their most dangerous attacking midfielder Wilfried Gnonto to their right wing where we had our young wing-back Richard Svec and that mismatch was punished by a goal in 72’ before I got to react and switch Svec to FBs instead of FBa. Slightly nervous in the last 20 minutes, but we held onto the lead and won in front of our home fans. A good win, but I don’t think De Gea thinks too highly about me after that first encounter. I was hopeful ahead of the Klassieker derby, but we were clearly beaten by Feyenoord at De Kuip. Our opponents demonstrated sharpness in attack with some really good movements and in 27’ our defence was ripped apart and Luis Sinisterra made it 1:0 for the hosts. We were lucky to equalise in 74’ after Feyenoord defence and goalkeeper made a mess of their clearance and the ball bounced into their own goal from their centre-back, but in the final 15 minutes they clearly showed that they deserved to win - three good chances and another goal in 88’ finished our cup journey. We were just not good enough - probably missed Prince Aning a lot in this match, because 17 years old Richard Svec was no match for Takefusa Kubo on our left flank who is one of the best wingers in Eredivisie. Our shooting was just 9/4 in this match, while Feyenoord had 27 attempts, so even to get into the extra time would have been riding our luck. But I have to admit, that I’m a bit embarrassed, because after ten years in this league we’re not used to be so soundly beaten very often. While everything seems to go poorly in the continental competitions and in the KNVB Beker, at least we’re strong in Eredivisie and bounced back with an away win over FC Twente. It was a bit drab match in the first half, but after the half-time team-talk we quickly scored (much better performance from Ja-Ryong Kim after his abysmal display at De Kuip) and Peter Misidjan curled it into the top corner to score his first goal of the season and secure all three points. Generally OK performance in the second half and good defence, because we didn’t allow FC Twente to create proper chances in this match. FK Astana is an obscure team in the Europa League and I went to the home game against them with clear intention to win and make sure we progress after the first leg and we did exactly that - a very convincing and comfortable 4:0 win at Johan Cruijff Arena put us in a very strong position in this tie and we can be quite relaxed before our second leg in Kazakhstan. PSV are our closest competitors in the league table, so the Topper derby at Philips Stadion was a crucial match for us. It was important not to lose, winning would be a bonus, at least that’s what I told myself. We started brilliantly - Ja-Ryon Kim scored out of nowhere with a limited space, but his attempt found the net and in 20’ John Meeuwis executed well after a long ball from Riswan Sinaga and in twenty minutes we were leading 2:0. Great start, but the first half ended 2:1, because PSV’s tall winger Naana Dalfour won a header against Jermoumi at the far post and headed it in. He scored a similar goal in our last encounter at Johan Cruijff Arena (that finished 2:2). I was really frustrated with that, but I acknowledge it’s difficult to defend against that when the opponent's jumping reach is 14 and Jermoumi has just 6. PSV changed their formation a little at half-time and in the beginning of the second half they started to get chances and their Russian midfielder Pavel Trifonov had three good looks in a row and finally in 53’ he was alone behind our lines and chipped it over Sinaga to equalise. Just then I realised their manager had switched him from BWM to MEZ and that led to untracked runs behind our defence that ripped us apart. PSV started to gain momentum and they dominated the second half - Jason van Duinen hit the post and wasted a couple of chances and we struggled to play through their high pressure, but somehow we managed to find the winning goal - PSV goalkeeper Maarten Paes dropped Ja-Ryong Kim’s cross in the box and John Meeuwis slotted it in to make it 3:2. Despite constant pressure from PSV we managed to hold on to that lead and returned from Eindhoven with a valuable 3:2 win. Statistically we were clearly beaten by PSV - we had possession, but just 6/3 shooting (all those three shots on target resulted in a goal) and 0.84xG while PSV had 25/9 attempts to our goal and 3.10 xG. We played the whole match with a balanced mentality - after scoring two goals in the first 20 minutes I didn’t feel we needed to be more attacking and then in the second half with 3:2 it seemed wise just to soak up that PSV’s pressure. So, a sort of tactical battle as well, in which we prevailed. Our trip to Kazakhstan was a tedious journey and Astana welcomed us with freezing weather and some light snow. The pitch looked decent despite that and we could play good football, but I chose to rotate the squad heavily and it wasn’t a highly entertaining match, finally ending goalless. We hit the woodwork twice (and Astana hit the post once), but it remained goalless. Our advantage from the first leg was enough to get us into the next round where we’ll meet Villarreal. And then it was time for our revenge match in the Klassieker derby. Feyenoord looked much more cautious at Johan Cruijff Arena - we had small initiative from start to finish and had things under control defensively. We created just a few good chances in the game, but they were enough to score one goal in each half and although we didn’t destroy our rivals in front of our home fans, it was a good and solid win. Tactics and Players Tactically the takeaway from February is that we tend to struggle in away games against big teams. Both away matches against Feyenoord and PSV were actually disastrous and it was a small miracle we managed to win 3:2 in Eindhoven. It doesn’t seem to be as much of a tactical problem, but our players are just too nervous in those high pressure games and fail to execute properly on the pitch. Lack of leaders (and determination), probably. In addition to that we have had some serious problems with injuries - Prince Aning and Quenten Hose missed most of the month with traumas, Ja-Ryong Kim and Amourricho van Axel Dongen suffered knocks, Stanis Idumbo Muzambo as well (but he’s very injury prone and that shouldn’t be a surprise), so my hand was often forced with squad selection. What delighted me was the fact that John Meeuwis ended his goal drought and scored a brace against PSV Eindhoven. He hasn’t been in the sharpest form in February, but he works really hard in training, his attributes improve and those bright moments indicate that he could pick up his goal scoring if he keeps his head down and has faith. While Meeuwis’ goals have dried up, our scoring is pretty evenly distributed. In February Amourricho van Axel Dongen reached 10 goals in the season and Ja-Ryong Kim scored four in eight games - he has started a lot more games after Nikita Tamm went to Chelsea and has managed to find his way to the score sheet more often as a result. With all the injuries and rotation I introduced Peter Misidjan back into the starting line-up and he offered some good performances in February, also scoring his first goal of the season. That’s the kind of impact we need towards the end of the season. I also introduced one new player and young midfielder Joel van de Sande made his debut in the away match against Astana. Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - a lot of inconsistency from our attacking players, but Aertssen has been rock solid in defence in most of the games and we need that kind of consistency. Goal of the Month: Peter Misidjan vs. FC Twente - curled into the top corner from 20 metres Eredivisie With our strong results in the league and wins over PSV and Feyenoord we maintain our big lead in the table and it looks like securing our next title shouldn’t pose much of a challenge any more. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted April 23 Author Share Posted April 23 March 2032 Fixtures and Results Five games in March (a lot less than in February). Our focus is on our Europa League fixtures with Villarreal, because the lead in the Eredivisie could allow us to be a little bit more relaxed (and risky with starting line-ups) in the league games. We started with a confident win over NEC Nijmegen. Our opponents started with a bit of an unorthodox 4-3-1-2 narrow formation, switched it to a more conservative 4-4-2 after the break, but it didn’t change the fact that their defence was just not good enough to contain us. Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored a brace and Olivier Aertssen wrapped things up from the spot. Kenneth Taylor was suspended for this game because of accumulated yellow cards, but we didn’t really miss him. In the end NEC players made 32 fouls and collected 7 yellow cards against us - referee Siemen Mulder was blasted for his performance in the game, but perhaps don’t foul so much, then? Our xG was 3.94 in the end, so a pretty convincing win. We were confident ahead of our first leg with Villarreal at Johan Cruijff Arena. Villarreal are an extremely experienced (fancy way of saying - old) team. They have almost the entire first eleven over 30 years old and a number of veterans aged 33-35 in the team. But, as it often happens, they were too defensive in away games and came to Amsterdam with a conservative 4-1-4-1 DM formation. We controlled it from start to finish and created some good chances in the first half - Amourricho van Axel Dongen put us in front with an easy finish and John Meeuwis scored with a lovely chip to make it 2:0 before Villarreal’s Pau Torres curled in a beautiful strike from 20 metres to keep them in the game at half-time. van Axel Dongen’s second goal in the second half made it 3:1 and that looks like a good enough result to take us into the second leg. sc Heerenveen offered us a battle between two Europa League games. We took the lead in the first half after 17-years old Richard Svec scored his first ever goal for the club, but the rest of the match was a fairly even battle between two teams. I had rotated and made a lot of changes in our starting line-up and it clearly showed in our attack - chances were rare and we couldn’t turn our possession into goals. At the same time Heerenveen wasted some big chances themselves - their best opportunity came in the first half from a corner when their Lithuanian centre-back Edgaras Utkus headed it over from a point blank range. In the end it remained 1:0 - not the best performance from us, but kept a clean sheet and I was delighted for Richard Svec and his match-winning strike. Next Thursday it was time to travel to Spain. I was a bit surprised at how small that Villarreal town really was, and just a 23,500 stadium was packed for the match. Villarreal started the game well - ex-Ajax striker Brian Brobbey used his first chance to give them a lead and curled it into the top corner from 23 metres ten minutes later, so after 19 minutes we were 0:2 behind and our 3:1 lead from the first match was pretty much obliterated. The rest of the ninety minutes were a real struggle - both teams defended well and it was difficult to create something, but in the second half Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi struck home with a fierce strike and gave us the vital goal. We had 10 attempts in the end, but neither of the teams could get xG over 1.00 - a very defensive game and Villarreal certainly defended well. We returned from Spain with a 1:2 defeat, but it was enough to get through with a 4:3 aggregate score. Our opponent in the quarter final is Newcastle United. The last match against Excelsior was a potentially tricky one, because Excelsior is the most overachieving club in Eredivisie this season and they’re currently sitting in 8th position (although predicted just 16th in pre-season) .It was one of the ugliest games I’ve ever seen - we couldn’t get any of our shots on target (in the first half our shooting was 6/0 and 14/2 in the full match) and our concentration in defence wasn’t much better either, as Excelsior managed to create a number of half-chances. We created none in the entire match - so poor was our attacking movement and decision-making, but as in the number of times before, we somehow managed to grab the win in injury time. John Meeuwis saw his attempt being blocked, but the rebound fell to Stanis Idumbo Muzambo who nodded it into the empty net. The most undeserved victory - our xG was slightly lower than Excelsior’s and they definitely felt that they did enough to get something out of this game, but that’s football. Tactics and Players So, three wins in Eredivisie and we’re still in the Europa League, but our performances have been declining through March and especially our attacking game and cohesion left much to desire. Tactically the only decision was how to approach the second leg game in Villarreal - I opted for our usual setup, just tuned mentality down to balanced. It wasn’t a poor choice per se, but Villarreal scored two very clinical goals and that left us struggling, until our regular positive 4-2-3-1 got us out of the mud..Because I rotated the team, I sometimes opted for Amourricho van Axel Dongen on our left flank as IWs - a move that supported our left defence a little bit more, but on the other hand had a negative effect on our attack. In the future it might be a conservative option to preserve our lead in difficult games. Our attacking players have had really inconsistent performances after the first two matches and it’s difficult to praise anybody in particular. But Peter Misidjan made his debut for Holland in this international window and that certainly deserves a notice. Prince Aning was also involved in international games and 17 years old winger Marcus Mägi made his debut for Estonia. Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - I can’t really praise any of the attacking players, but at least we’ve kept some clean sheets and that’s mostly Aertssen’s doing. Also scored a penalty against NEC Nijmegen Goal of the Month: Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi vs. Villarreal - well struck into the top corner; also a vital goal to keep us in the Europa League Youth Intake 2032 A very interesting bunch of players this season. We have two excellent striker prospects in Sander van Dijk and Grzegorz Kmiecik (how on earth a Swedish-Polish kid ended up in Amsterdam?), a decent goalkeeper in Niciano Kuijsten and a couple of decent defensive midfielders. Overall it’s a very international group of kids - players from Sweden, Germany, Estonia, Somalia, Turkey (and a few from Netherlands, too). Football journalists published their NxGn 50 list to draw attention to top talents and wonderkids in football and to my surprise I saw Richard Svec high on the third place in the list. Loet van Fessem and Anass Sarpong are also in the list, but in places between 31-40. Eredivisie We’ve maintained our 10 points lead over PSV Eindhoven. At the bottom of the table SC Cambuur looks like to be relegated, but Willem II fight fiercely against relegation and have found a way to get some points to the board, so nothing is decided about them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 April 2032 Fixtures and Results Five games in April. We are approaching the end of season and our focus now shifts to Europa League - two difficult games against Newcastle United (who look like a strong Premier League top-half team) and I suspect that we need to rotate a little bit more in our Eredivisie games to absorb the match load. The Noord-Hollandse derby against AZ Alkmaar was as terrible as our last game in March against Excelsior. Both teams defended well, but our attack was really dull and we couldn’t make a single shot until Prince Aning saw a half-chance deep in injury time. Both of our two attempts missed the target and our xG was just 0.22, but AZ weren’t much better. I could again criticise our attacking players (and perhaps pressure seems to get to them, because again I saw a lot of nervous faces on the pitch). A bore draw as a result ended our ten games winning streak, but one point might be good enough, considering our big advantage in the table. Then it was time for our trip to St. James’ Park in England. In the away game we started with a bit more balanced mentality and cautious pressing instructions, but we were pretty much battered from start to finish. Newcastle scored their first goal in the first ten minutes and then Kenneth Taylor gave away a penalty. I tried to change things in the second half and switched tactical instructions, but no help - players were anxious and Newcastle enjoyed total control over proceedings. Third goal came in and in 88’ they completed the rout with their fourth, so we returned from England with our tail between our legs and it was clear that our Europa League campaign was over with that defeat. We had just one key pass, one shot (off target) and 6.39 average rating. Clearly beaten and nothing good to take away from this match. Struggling FC Groningen offered us a chance to bounce back and light things up - after a quiet first half it happened that Groningen’s left-back Isiah Dalfour received his second yellow card and then we started to put the pressure on - Quenten Hose scored with a nice volley from a free kick and then doubled his tally from the spot. Young Jaap Prinsen was unlucky to see his free kick hit the crossbar, but Ognjen Rajkovic was first to react and slotted in from a loose ball and added another goal with a header from a corner. Meanwhile FC Groningen lost another player to early dismissal and the second half was really relaxed from our part. Curious that all four goals came from set pieces (no wonder, as FC Groningen made 27 fouls in this game). The win also secured our Eredivisie title with four match days to go. We had nothing but pride to play for in the second leg match with Newcastle. We conceded an early goal (again), but van Axel Dongen equalised in the first half after a blunder from the Newcastle goalkeeper. However, our defensive errors allowed Pedro Neto to score a simple tap-in in injury time and take Newcastle to half-time with a 2:1 lead. We did well to find another goal and make it 2:2 shortly after the break. John Meeuwis wasted another clear cut chance in 76, but Newcastle also hit the crossbar and Matheus Cunha forced Sinaga to make a fantastic save in 80’, so 2:2 seemed like a fair result in the end. Newcastle went through to the semi finals (and eventually into the final where they lost to Manchester United). After securing our league title, the away win over Fortuna Sittard was a fairly routine affair. Fortuna certainly weren’t happy with their season and sacked their manager, bringing in Mark van Bommel (who has been unemployed for two years after being sacked by PSV Eindhoven) just before our match, but it didn’t make much difference - Can Tas headed in from a free kick and Peter Misidjan doubled our lead in the second half. Kenneth Taylor also missed a penalty, but it didn’t matter. Defensively we looked good and didn’t give Fortuna any decent chances, so a solid 2:0 win for us. So, we’re the champions again, but our Europa League campaign is over and our season is heading to its final stretch. Tactics and Players Tactically our biggest disappointment was the away game at St. James’ Park - I tweaked some things, but we had just one attempt and we couldn’t keep Newcastle attacking players under control. I’m not sure how much their better quality was the factor, but we failed miserably there. With the win over FC Groningen we got over our slump in form, but the last three games also showed we relied a lot on set pieces - all four goals in the FC Groningen match came from a set piece and Can Tas also scored from an indirect free kick against Fortuna Sittard. Taylor also missed a penalty, so there’s some proof we can be very effective in dead ball situations if we’re given a chance. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi was suffered from a neck injury and he missed most of the games in April, returning for the Fortuna game and so Giorgio Jongebloet started all four games as our right-back, and I have to say that he didn’t use that chance well - he was almost always one of our worst performers and received 5.8 rating in the defeat from Newcastle. He’s still young and talented, but at the moment his only advantage over Jermoumi is his height - he’s slightly better in the air and after Jermoumi had lost a couple of crucial headers at the far post that led to conceding a goal, I appreciate a taller player, but his lack of technical ability means he’s not offering much in attack with the ball on his feet, so we were much less of a threat down that right flank. Our attacking players were terrible in the first two games, but slightly improved over the course of next matches. I was delighted for John Meeuwis who finally scored (his 16th goal of the season) and Ja-Ryong Kim finally put in some decent performances (although South Korean fans debate whether his form deserves a call to the national team). What this poor form towards the end of the season means is that interest in our star players has slowly ebbed away and I haven’t seen a manager of a big club in Johan Cruyff Arena for a while now. Perhaps it predicts a quiet Summer for us in the transfer market. Player of the Month: Ognjen Rajkovic - played in three games, but was superb against FC Groningen and also had a good game in the 2nd leg match against Newcastle. Showed that he can be relied upon in defence. Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. FC Groningen - technically the most difficult effort, directing a volley from a free kick into the net. Eredivisie We won the title by some margin and we can reach 90 points if we win our remaining fixtures in May. Feyenoord won the KNVB Beker final, but PSV Eindhoven are holding the runner up position in the table. At the bottom, SC Cambuur will be relegated, but the battle for the 16th place between NEC Nijmegen and Willem II Tilburg will be fierce. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 May 2032 Fixtures and Results Three games in our schedule and all of the opponents are small teams, so I expect three wins. Willem II are fighting against relegation, so they’ll probably give their all against us, but other clubs have little to play for at this stage. It’s interesting to see our loanees Rik Vos and Loet van Fessem in action for PEC Zwolle and ADO Den Haag respectively We took a narrow 1:0 win over PEC Zwolle - John Meeuwis scored, but we didn’t create too many good chances (although kept our defence in order and limited Zwolle’s options). Decent away win, I guess, although less entertaining than our fans perhaps expect. Our home game against ADO Den Haag was another routine winn - we took the lead in the first half and then ADO’s Jenson Seelt was sent off after he brought down Meeuwis as the last man and 11 vs. 10 our second half was much more relaxed. However, one lapse of concentration in defence allowed ADO to score from their very first attempt in the game, so that did upset me a little, but Hose made it 3:1 before the end and settled the nerves. We had more fun in the last match, beating Willem II 4:0 (and sending them to relegation in the process). Willem II needed a win from this game to survive, but they didn’t put up a fight and when John Meeuwis curled in a swerving attempt from 21 metres it seemed that life went out of that Willem II team. Penalty from Hlynsson and another goal from Meeuwis made it 3:0 at half-itme and Ja-Ryong Kim completed the rout in 86’ - very confident win to wrap up our season in front of home fans. Tactics and Players Much more attacking football on display in May - it seems that our regular positive 4-2-3-1 works out nicely against smaller teams in the league. I could rotate a bit in May and most of the players got chances to impress. We also avoided unnecessary bookings and suspensions that could have come with us into the next season. I was really impressed with John Meeuwis in those three games and it looks like our best striker is back in form - he scored against Zwolle, then was at his creative best against ADO, dishing out two assists and creating chances for teammates and completed his month with a brace against Willem II. Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - good in all three games, scoring three goals and giving two assists. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Willem II Tilburg - curled into the top corner from 21 metres. Eredivisie We have a huge advantage in the table and to collect 90 points with 34 games is a great achievement. PSV were runner-up and FC Utrecht hung on to their third place, despite the fact that Feyenoord and Vitesse were on a long winning streak at the end of the season. At the bottom of the table Willem II went out and NEC secured the place in the play-offs, but failed to protect their Eredivisie place and fell against Almere City in two games. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 2 Author Share Posted May 2 Another year, another Eredivisie title, although I have to say that we struggled more than usual against our bigger competitors, especially in away games. We were outplayed by PSV and Feyenoord in away matches and our inability to play well at De Kuip ultimately kicked us out from the KNVB Beker in the quarter final stage. Our European season was a disappointment, too - we couldn’t get through the group in the Champions League and although we met our minimum target in Europa League (to progress further from the first knockout stages) we dropped out in the quarter final, so it wasn’t a spectacular campaign. In addition to first team trophies our U-18 team won the league, so our future continues to seem bright. Tactics and Players The fact that we didn’t sell our key players should have been our advantage this season, but we didn’t look like a much improved team after last Summer. Nikita Tamm left in January, but his departure didn’t seem to have a real effect on our performances. Despite that we hit a real slump in March and April - not only results (defeat to Feyenoord), but also performances and our inability to create chances was worse than in the last season. Players were generally fit - the most risky period was in Autumn when Prince Aning was out and young Richard Svec had to start as our left-back, but in attack I usually had options and we could rotate the team, so while players were fit and sharp, I can’t explain all of the poor performances. In some games it was evident that the current team can’t handle pressure too well - some of our leaders have just ‘balanced’ personalities and that’s not good enough. I have to rely on more determined players to form the future team towards professionalism, ambition and grit. AFC Ajax End of Season Awards 2031-2032 Eredivisie Awards 2031-2032 Plenty of awards came our way in June. Olivier Aertssen won the Golden Boot, I was (again) voted the manager of the year by Eredivisie managers and Riswan Sinaga was just a bit short of winning the goalkeeper of the year. We made a clean sweep in the Young Player of the Year category, where the win belonged to (perhaps surprisingly) Koen Verlijsdonk. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 7 Author Share Posted May 7 Summer 2032 July started with the usual pre-season analysis, but to my surprise it was the first Summer when pundits picked Vitesse Arnhem as the most likely winner of the Eredivisie. Surprising, because they finished just 5th in May and although they have a very strong first eleven, we became champions by an astonishing 18 points margin and our young team looks better and more experienced than it was a year ago, so I wonder if analysts thought clearly if they predicted us the runners-up position. We’ll see how it unfolds in reality. Transfer Window Several youngsters went on loan in Summer and it was convenient for us that our feeder club Almere City were promoted to Eredivisie, so our loan manager jumped at the chance and sent Joel van de Sande, Joel Comvalius and Kevin Otto there right away. Goalkeeper Calvin Francis went to relegated Willem II for the season and young winger Bence Kertesz tries to make an impact in AFC. At the same time some loan players returned to bolster our first team ranks - Rik Vos and Loet van Fessem provide more options in defence and Anass Sarpong hopes to get some game time on the wing. Van Fessem trained with the first team and played in August, but on transfer deadline day he went on loan to Excelsior. One departure in this transfer window was Stanis Idumbo Muzambo - an ambitious attacking midfielder who is skilled and technical, but his contract ran out and his expectations about his new deal were higher than I was willing to meet - around £40-50k p/w seemed over the top for a squad player who is also fairly injury prone. In the end I allowed him to leave for free (something that fans disliked, but at least the board understood his impact on our wage budget and was more content with the decision). I also sold young centre-back Ben Zimmerman to AZ Alkmaar for £100k + 40% next transfer fee clause - Zimmerman is a decent talent, who’s unlikely to be good enough for our first team, so that’s always a good solution - average fee + high future fee clauses and if he makes himself a name in the other clubs we will financially benefit from it as well. It happened that Manchester City made an offer to our coach Ashley Rogers. As the Briton he had obviously enough temptation to accept the offer and return to England, so I was prepared to let him go, and the compensation that City was willing to pay for his services (£1,8m) was good enough for almost any backroom staff. Fortunately I had prepared for such events and had an extensive shortlist of potential staff. I quickly approached AZ Alkmaar’s Dijar Kasim who took over our technical attacking coaching (and immediately raised it to 5* level). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 Squad Update 2032 The core of the team has remained the same and except Stanis Idumbo Muzambo we didn’t have any departures this Summer. Few of the talented youngsters (Calvin Francis, Loet van Fessem, Joel van de Sande) are out on loan, but we have a good squad size (22 players) to start the season with, knowing that one or two youngsters from U-18 can climb their way up towards Spring. Our oldest player is Kenneth Taylor who turned 30 in Spring, but the average age is between 22-23, so we’re still extremely young even at Eredivisie level and that inexperience is expected to show in more difficult Champions League games. We have less international players than earlier - some of them have grown out of U-21 level, but haven’t been able to get the call-up to the main squad. Kenneth Taylor, Prince Aning and Peter Misidjan are on the verge of the national team at the moment. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson is a regular for Iceland and Ja-Ryong Kim has collected more than 50 caps for South Korea. Estonia relies heavily on youngsters who come up from our youth system. Goalkeepers Riswan Sinaga has improved a lot in the last season, but because Calvin Francis is away on loan, we’re rather thin in the goalkeeping department. If something would happen to Sinaga, our next best option is young Bulgarian Metodi Borisov from Jong Ajax. Defenders My preferred four would be Jermoumi-Aertssen-Rajkovic-Aning. Compared to the last season we have a lot more depth, because we have Rik Vos back in the team and four centre-backs should allow us to distribute game time between players. Can Tas is our second best centre-back on paper, but his short height and inability to deal with headers has caused us problems in the past and I have found that I prefer Rajkovic over him in the second part of the last season. It’s possible that I need to retrain Can Tas as a midfielder to keep him happy at Ajax (or allow him to move on). There is experience in this defensive line - a lot of players between 25-30 years of age. Young full-backs Richard Svec and Giorgio Jongebloet have improved nicely, but their technical ability is still a lot behind Aning and Jermoumi, so that’s the main focus in training for them from now on. Midfielders Not a lot of changes here. In controlling midfield I rely on the trio Taylor-Muringen-Tahiri. Both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri have developed really well in training. I lack good cover for Taylor, but if necessary Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson can drop deeper to the DLPd role. The AMCa position is usually shared between Hlynsson and Peter Misidjan, who can expect much more game time this season after Stanis Idumbo Muzambo’s departure. Wingers Here we had to change things a little bit because Nikita Tamm left in the last Winter and Ja-Ryong Kim had to carry the main load on the left. Kim and van Axel Dongen are in my first eleven at the start of this season, with Quenten Hose as the third option. If I need to replace Kim, my preferred solution is to switch van Axel Dongen to the left as IWs and send Hose to the right as IWa. The new face in the team is Anass Sarpong - a young and talented lad who played for Jong Ajax last Autumn and spent six months on loan at Almere City. He did fairly well in KeukenKampioen Divisie and now tries to get minutes here in Ajax. He’s capable of playing on both wings, but his agility and speed suit better for the AMR IWa position. Strikers No changes here. I expect John Meeuwis to produce more goals and better performances than last season (20 goals should be a reasonable expectation for him) and Koen Verlijsdonk provides cover and minutes from the bench. Both play as PFa usually, but Meeuwis looks fairly versatile and even able to play as CFa. We have talented youngsters coming up from U-18, but it takes a couple of seasons for them to get on the brink of the first team. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 August 2032 Fixtures and Results Four games in August. We start with the Johan Cruijff Schaal against our arch-rivals Feyenoord, but the Eredivisie season kicks off with a fairly easy schedule for us - home games against Almere City and Excelsior look like must wins and should give us good morale and confidence going forward. We had home advantage for the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and we used it to full effect - controlled possession in the first half and in right before half-time Taylor’s defence-splitting pass found Peter Misidjan who placed his attempt next to the post. Feyenoord got inspired at half-time and they looked much more threatening right after the break and ex-Ajax player David Kalokoh equalised in 47’. I sent out Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson who had an instant impact by scoring a goal and assisting another - Prince Aning scored the best one of the game by sending a fierce shot into the top corner. The final score 3:1 was a very good win for us and gave a lot of confidence for the coming season. The first Eredivisie game against Almere City (at home) was probably the easiest match of the season (at least on paper). Almere finished 7th in Keuken Kampioen Divisie, but somehow got promoted through play-offs and now find themselves well out of their depth. Three players from Jong Ajax bolster their ranks, but nobody predicts them higher than 18th. I rotated the squad and pretty much sent out our second eleven against them, so despite our possession we couldn’t create good chances in the first half and always seemed to miss the final pass or breakthrough in their box. Penalty helped us in the second half - van Axel Dongen was brought down in the box and Taylor slotted in from the spot. Ten minutes later the Almere goalkeeper was unable to save Muringen’s strong attempt. It remained 2:0 - not the most impressive result, but we had no problems in defence, so it was a fairly one-sided fixture anyway. sc Heerenveen away seemed like a tricky fixture and indeed they were. They had a good start and in the first 10-15 minutes it looked like momentum was theirs. Heerenveen had a number of corners in that period and one of them led to a close range header from their centre-back that should have been a goal, but Sinaga was in the right position and catched it comfortably. We then started to get better control over the midfield and John Meeuwis sent a beautiful volley into the bottom corner to make it 1:0 in the first half. The second half was much more under our control and van Axel Dongen’s tap-in made it 2:0. In the end we enjoyed 70% possession, so Heerenveen’s game plan probably didn’t work as well as they hoped and we came away with a good win. We wrapped up August with a confident win over Excelsior - Kenneth Taylor opened things up with a beautiful free kick, John Meeuwis scored a brace (both goals were really easy tap-ins from just two metres out. Hlynsson added our fourth at the start of the second half and then Excelsior’s Apostolis Konstantopoulos was sent off for his two-footed lunge on Meeuwis - no contest from there on. The final score was 4:0, but we also hit the woodwork three times in this game, so it could have been worse for Excelsior. In summary - a really strong start to our season and good results in August. Tactics and Players No news tactically - our positive 4-2-3-1 wide seems to work fine. I’ve added some individual instructions for specific players in certain positions (mainly whether to take more risks with passing or not). Also, playing with Ognjen Rajkovic in centre-back has allowed us to add variety to our corner routines, so both centre-backs are involved in attacking set pieces (Can Tas was useless in those situations because of his short height). Player performances have been good in general, but Kenneth Taylor has stood out with his skillful passing and creativity - he’s been our best performer in August by far and the team has relied heavily on him in those games. Key assist in the derby, beautiful free kick and a number of key passes. He’s been above 8.00 rating in all of his games so far. We have no injury problems so far and in August we’ve had plenty of time to prepare for fixtures, so it’s been a relatively easy period for us, with good pre-season training. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - just outstanding; two goals, three assists and 8.6 rating in August Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. sc Heerenveen - Taylor scored a beautiful free kick against Excelsior, but Meeuwis’ goal was really important to break the deadlock in away match at Heerenveen - a technically skillful volley from outside of the area that landed in the bottom corner - classy goal. Eredivisie Both PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord have dropped a lot of points in their first match days. PSV is rebuilding - they let go a number of veteran players in Summer and also sold their key striker Jason van Duiven. Feyenoord have struggles of their own, so both giants seem struggling. That allowed FC Utrecht to emerge as the main challenger for the title - they had an excellent August, starting with successful Champions League play-offs where they secured their place in the group stage and also started their Eredivisie campaign with three straight wins. They’ve finished third two seasons in a row now and there’s no reason to believe they want to win the title now. At the bottom of the table we find Almere City (as predicted). Another newly-promoted team RKC Waalwijk seems to be weaker than their competitors, too. Champions League Groups were drawn and we landed in Group G with AS Monaco, AC Milan and Sturm Graz. AC Milan looks like the strongest team in the group. AS Monaco should be on a similar level with us and Austrians are clear outsiders. We have a chance to go through if we perform well against AC Milan at home and manage to beat AS Monaco over two games. FC Utrecht is in group A with Manchester City, Atalanta and Atletico Madrid - I can’t see them higher than 4th against those clubs. PSV Eindhoven are in group C with PSG, Inter and Panathinaikos. While they should be able to beat Greeks, the other two opponents are European giants and so third place and Europa League knockout stages is a realistic target for PSV. 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Draakon Posted May 16 Author Share Posted May 16 September 2032 Fixtures and Results September offers two difficult Champions League matches. In Eredivisie we host FC Utrecht (who has been superb at the start of the season) and also have two potentially tricky away games with PEC Zwolle and Heracles Almelo, so it’s not so easy to pick correct starting line-ups for those matches - they could be easy canters, but we can drop cheap points there if we’re not careful. We resumed our Eredivisie campaign with a trip to Zwolle. Fortunately players had no injuries after the international break, so I could plan ahead and select the ones that play in league matches and who are battling the Champions League fixtures. We had a fairly easy time against PEC Zwolle - a penalty and another goal from a free kick gave us a strong 2:0 lead at half-time and although we were caught napping by Zwolle in 53’ and they made it 1:2, Zwolle’s Marius Dieterle received his second yellow card four minutes later and John Meeuwis quickly reinstated our two-goal lead. The second half after the red card looked very comfortable for us. Zwolle made 30 fouls in this match and it was their undoing - our first half goals came from set pieces and the red card took away their hopes for a come-back. Kenneth Taylor was again our best player with a goal and assist. We were bold enough to go against AC Milan with our standard positive 4-2-3-1 setup at Johan Cruijff Arena and it paid a lot of dividends in our Champions League opener. We created some good chances in the first half and when van Axel Dongen gave us the lead with a simple tap-in after Aning found him in front of the goal with a cross, I felt that it was no less than we deserved after our first half performance. van Axel Dongen scored his second goal just a few minutes into the second half and three minutes later Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson showed his class by turning away from his defender and finding the net with a lovely finish. In 55’ it was 3:0 ,but then I made substitutions and our rhythm disappeared - Rafael Leao got a goal back for AC Milan with a thunderous strike in 86’ and Liel Nahmias scored their second in injury time with a swerving shot from 22 metres. It got really nervous for a moment, but it was too late for AC Milan - we held onto our 3:2 lead despite conceding two late goals. I was obviously delighted with the result and our performance against the big team. Before the fifth matchday both us and FC Utrecht had won the first four games, so the game between two leaders at Johan Cruijff Arena should have been a treat, but it ended with a goalless draw. We had the best opportunities in the first half - Amourricho van Axel Dongen missed from a near post and then saw his penalty being saved by the FC Utrecht goalkeeper (who was later named the best player of the game). Our opponents had better moments after the break - they hit the woodwork twice and Ansgar Knauff had a one-on-one moment with Riswan Sinaga in 85’ just to send his shot well over the bar. In the end it was a more-less fair result that retained the status quo in the table, but I was still a little bit frustrated, because I felt that if we had taken our chances in the first half and got better control in the match we could have won this. And if we couldn’t win at home, the away game will be a bit tougher to get three points from. Away game against Heracles was a potentially tricky one, because we were against a solid top-half team at Erve Asito. For the second game in a row we couldn’t score and it ended with a goalless draw. We had a couple of good chances in the first half - most notably Quenten Hose’s chance after Rajkovic found him with a long ball forward - but our finishing wasn’t up to task and Heracles looked disciplined enough. Peter Misidjan had a poor game as AMCa and our full-backs couldn’t find teammates with their crosses. Disappointing. We finished September with a trip to Monaco. Mediterranean weather welcomed us with 26C degrees and Delio Onnis Stadium was packed with 27,151 fans, so there wasn’t a single empty seat on the stands. I used our balanced 4-2-3-1 edition that we tested in pre-season and honestly, the first half couldn’t have been better. Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored with a beautiful volley and Hlynsson doubled our lead after the AS Monaco goalkeeper pushed Ja-Ryong Kim’s cross right at his feet. At half-time I had every reason to praise the team, because tactically we were spot on, defence looked solid and we were clinical with our chances. However, the second half didn’t go our way - Scott McTominay produced an outstanding screamer from 24 metres to get AS Monaco back into the game and in 80’ their centre-back headed in from a free kick to equalise. John Meeuwis had a decent look in 89’ to win the match for us, but his close range header went over. Really harsh second half - I was disappointed with the draw after leading 2:0 at half-time, but I have to say that Monaco got really lucky in the second half - they didn’t get a proper chance in the game and to score two goals from almost out of nowhere had nothing to do with our performance. Just individual brilliance and some luck on their side. But on the larger scale of things I think that this draw from the away game is not a bad result in our Champions League group. Tactics and Players Tactically the main question for me was how to approach the Monaco game. The balanced Champions League setup seemed to work well, at least until the attacking players used their chances well - we are not creating much with those instructions and our number of shots could be well below ten, but at least in defence we look well organised and at the same time didn’t look under real pressure from Monaco. So, the next test with that setup will be at San Siro against AC Milan. Attacking players will get some stick from me for their poor performances in September. After the AC Milan match we weren’t good enough in attack. Actually, it seemed that right when we had to rotate the line-up the problems appeared. Peter Misidjan has been really poor in three of the games, Ja-Ryong Kim was below-par against FC Utrecht and even van Axel Dongen had an off day at Almelo and Quenten Hose also lacks match sharpness, so as soon as I needed to rest Hlynsson, van Axel Dongen and Kenneth Taylor our attack ran into the wall. I can’t criticise John Meeuwis too much, because if he doesn’t get any decent passes it’s unreasonable to demand goals from him. And while we are good in possession and get a number of set pieces we haven’t been able to use them well enough. No goals from corners and the missed penalty against FC Utrecht really summed this up. At least we scored two goals at Monaco and hopefully it gives some confidence to our attacking four. Despite all of our problems we’re still 22 games unbeaten at the end of September. Player of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen - despite having some not so good performances, scored four goals in September Goal of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen vs. AS Monaco - extremely technical volley, but placed right next to the post. Eredivisie We’re two points behind FC Utrecht after that goalless draw with Heracles. Both Vitesse and PSV are breathing down our neck. At the bottom it looks like Almere City are way out of their depth and RKC Waalwijk is another club with not enough quality to stay up. Champions League Not a bad start at all. A win over AC Milan and an away draw with AS Monaco gives us more points than expected from the first two rounds. AS Monaco couldn’t get more than a point against Sturm Graz in the first round, so it makes our position even stronger compared to them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 October 2032 Fixtures and Results The Eredivisie fixture list offers some tricky away games in Alkmaar and Groningen, but overall it’s not too difficult - five games in October and only one Champions League fixture - a must win game at home with Sturm Graz. A defeat in the Noord-Hollandse derby finished our 22 match unbeaten run. We took the lead in 18’ - Ja Ryong Kim worked well to win the ball back, found Meeuwis with a quick pass and the forward scored with an excellent finish to make it 1:0. AZ reacted quickly and equalised three minutes later when Prince Aning let their Romanian right winger Andrei Preda to get away and finished their chance. Preda had a great game, unfortunately for us, because his header in 41’ gave AZ the lead. It didn’t improve in the second half, because it looked like AZ controlled things completely and grew more confident with their lead, so we struggled in attack, but all attempts to find the equaliser were fruitless. We finished the match with 0.88 xG and although we had 10 corners in the game, we couldn’t get any of them on target. Poor performance and a poor result. The AZ defeat had shaken our confidence a little and perhaps our fans’ too, because there were just over 54,000 spectators present for our next home game against FC Twente, in a stadium with more than 62,000 capacity. Our confidence clearly was shaken, because FC Twente scored an early goal with a header from point blank range and almost added another before ten minutes were played. Fortunately, Anass Sarpong (who started on the right wing) looked composed and his equaliser in 30’ brought us back into the game. van Axel Dongen headed in right before half-time to make it 2:1 before the break. FC Twente’s Bryan de Kaster scored his second goal of the night from a counter in 62’ - completely against the run of play - but at least then we reacted well and started to put our opponents under pressure. John Meeuwis wasted a couple of half-chances, but he finally scored in 82’ to restore our lead and after Quenten Hose’s volley in 88’ it was game over. Hose was our player of the game - he came on in 72’, assisted our third goal, scored himself and turned the game around. Not the best performance from us, but at least things are looking better in attack and the fighting spirit is still there. Defensive mistakes should be avoided, though. The home game with Sturm Graz should have been the easiest in our Champions League group, but somehow we struggled with finishing during the entire game. We missed some half-chances in the first half already, but in 42’ John Meeuwis showed his mojo - Peter Misidjan found him on a counter with a long ball and Meeuwis scored with an excellent finish to break the deadlock, but then missed a 100% chance in injury time, so we had just a narrow 1:0 lead at half-time. And it got worse in the second half - two more misses from Meeuwis and then he hit the crossbar from a completely open position. I finally took him off and sent out Koen Verlijsdonk, who continued the work that Meeuwis had started - it means: missing chances. another decent opportunity went wide and then from a clear cut chance he only managed to hit the post. It finished 1:0 and we had the win, but we should have scored four or five goals easily - we had 4 clear cut chances in this game and had 3.67 xG, but just one goal to show from all those opportunities. At least our poor finishing didn’t cost us points in the table. We started against FC Groningen without our best striker John Meeuwis who had a minor problem with his knee and I thought it would be wiser to keep him on the bench as a precaution. Koen Verlijsdonk started in attack. It didn’t begin well for us, as FC Groningen took the lead in 15’ and at half-time we had just one half-chance to show for our efforts. A lot of things didn’t go our way on the pitch and players looked anxious, so that added to the pressure. In 69’ I finally took the risk and sent Meeuwis out and eventually that paid off - he missed one good chance in 84’, but was alert enough in the final minute when FC Groningen’s goalkeeper Jens Craenmehr dropped the ball, and scored a late equaliser for us. A disappointing game from us (just 9/4 shooting - Groningen defender quite well against us), but at least we rescued a point and who knows how important that could be at the end of the season. The last match with FC Emmen finally offered some good football and a convincing 3:0 win. FC Emmen were promoted to Eredivisie this Summer, but they surprised everybody with their strong start in August. However, that good run started to fade away in September and October, and we didn’t have too many problems against them. Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot in the first half to give us a 1:0 lead after the first period. We played well enough and created ourselves a few chances, but I was rather upset with referee Dennis Higler, who had shown our players three yellow cards for four fouls before half-time. A bit biassed? We didn’t allow it to become a problem and started the second half really strong - Olivier Aertssen scored a beautiful goal in 47’ - a bit unorthodox one for a centre-back. He was in the box for a corner, started to run back to defence, but we regained possession and Hlynsson found him with a pass just outside of the area. Unmarked and unopposed, he took the ball into the box and fired it into the top corner - a striker’s goal from a centre-back! van Axel Dongen scored our third with a nice volley and Kenneth Taylor was unlucky just to hit the post with a free kick from a promising position. Really good win to give some confidence back after a few poor results, but at the same time I have to admit we couldn’t prevent complacency from creeping in after our third goal. Tactics and Players I haven’t changed much tactically, just tweaked some minor personal instructions - mainly switching John Meeuwis’ role between PFa and CFa to change our shape a little in attack. The players have been fit and we haven’t had serious injury problems so far, some precautions with rotation certainly helps. We haven’t had problems tactically, but we have struggled to find confidence - especially in away games and that has cost us some points in recent weeks. Several players are looking anxious and nervous on the pitch and my sideline shouts are not always improving things. It looks like our leaders lack the ability to handle pressure and that affects our football, but I hope that the last win over FC Emmen will help to get things back on track. I have been able to distribute playing time evenly, but there are just a few unhappy faces in the squad. The first one is Can Tas who has not played too many games in central defence and after seeing him struggling (again) against tall strikers in the FC Twente game I decided that it was enough. I’ll start to retrain him as a DLPd, because he will always be a liability with just 9 for a jumping reach, but his passing is good and vision is decent enough and with 16 for tackling he could become a good defensive midfielder/playmaker. The second worried player is Claidel Muringen - the young midfielder is still waiting for a new contract, but we haven’t been able to reach an agreement with his agent who expects no less than £26,000 p/w for a 22 years old squad player. A little bit too much for my liking, but the parties are not willing to compromise and back down, so talks have broken up several times now. Hopefully we’ll sign a new deal before Christmas, because Muringen is a talented player and I’d like to keep him in Ajax. Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - our striker has found his goalscoring boots this season. He scored four goals in October, including the winner against Sturm Graz and late equaliser against FC Groningen. At the moment he’s leading the Eredivisie goal scoring table with seven league goals to his name. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Sturm Graz - Meeuwis has scored a few technical goals in October, but the winner against Sturm Graz will be the pick of the fans. Eredivisie We have dropped some points in October, but so has FC Utrecht. The top of the table is really tight and Vitesse have climbed their way up to the top after ten match days, but us, FC Utrecht and others are really close. At the bottom of the table it looks like Almere City and PEC Zwolle are the weakest of the bunch. The Zwolle board reacted promptly and sacked Colin Balkenstein before the end of October in an attempt to turn things around. Champions League Half of the games have been played and we look in a really good place at the moment, five points above AS Monaco and we should qualify from the group without problems Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 25 Author Share Posted May 25 November 2032 Fixtures and Results November doesn’t surprise us with much - first the trip to Austria, followed by three home games (that get gradually more difficult when we host PSV Eindhoven and AS Monaco in one week) and we close the month with a trip to small town of Waalwijk and play against outsiders RKC. We started our match against Sturm Graz with some confidence and I felt that we could rotate a little bit, so Jermoumi and van Axel Dongen were rested, along with Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. Perhaps because of that we found the first half more difficult than it should have been. Ja-Ryong Kim was the most active player from our team, creating chances and moving well with the ball and in 30’ we had the best chance of the first half when Kim found Quenten Hose with a cross, but Hose headed it over from just a few metres. Peter Misidjan tried his luck from just outside of the area, but his attempt struck the post and went out, so it remained goalless at half-time. Kim continued to cause problems for Graz defenders and in one set piece situation he was brought down in the box, so Kenneth Taylor gave us the lead from the spot and substitute Koen Verlijsdonk scored his first goal of the season to make sure we return with all three points. Ja-Ryong Kim earned a lot of praise for his performance (and attention from the South Korean manager who was on the stands) - he made 6 key passes, 9 dribbles and earned us a penalty - but the player of the match was Ognjen Rajkovic who had an excellent game defensively - winning most of the duels and two key headers. AC Milan and AS Monaco made a 1:1 draw in the other game and so this win made sure that we qualify from the group, although there’s two more games to go. I expected to record a comfortable win over Sparta Rotterdam, but it wasn’t the case as we battled for a difficult 2:1 victory at Johan Cruijff Arena. Sparta’s game plan seemed to be working better at first and we had to make an early change as van Axel Dongen came off with injury after just four minutes. Sparta got the first half-chance of the match, but Olivier Aertssen got back to make an important block. We struggled to create decent chances in the first half, but a penalty gave us the lead late in the first half and John Meeuwis wasted a great chance in injury time, so we were leading 1:0 at half-time and the end of the period offered some encouragement. We had looked error-prone in defence (perhaps because Olivier Aertssen and Rik Vos were untested partnership in our central defence), so in 53’ Rody Hoegee equalised for Sparta with a simple finish. Prince Aning took blame for the goal, as his missed interception contributed heavily to this conceded chance. We tried to find the winner and I had to make the changes I didn’t really want to make - sending out Kenneth Taylor and Claidel Muringen - but it didn’t seem to work out. Taylor wasted a free kick from a a promising position and chances were still rare . Sparta’s game plan looked simple enough - their Finnish goalkeeper Kimmo Leskinen delivered a long kick and saw what happened. What happened in 83’ was that Rik Vos missed his header and Toni Dangelmayr managed to turn away from him and was one-on-one against Riswan Sinaga. His attempt went well wide, but I witnessed another moment exactly like this two minutes later and this time our goalkeeper made a great save to keep things level. I was furious with Vos at this point, because as a centre-back you can’t make such simple mistakes in defence. In the end it worked out well for us - Ja-Ryong Kim delivered a cross to the six yard box and Quenten Hose was there to score with a tap-in. A late winner and three points to the table, but our performance had a lot to desire in both attack and defence. We created four clear cut chances in the game and our xG was 3.07, but we struggled to get the second goal. At the same time our defence looked way too error-prone through those ninety minutes, so little to praise after the match. Quenten Hose earned the plaudits - a foul against him got us the penalty in the first half, his late winner secured us three points and in between he managed to spread out six key passes and be the best player in our attack. We were favourites for the Topper derby, but the international break during the past 12 days had left the team a bit tired and I had some difficult squad selection decisions to make, because we had a difficult AS Monaco match coming up in midweek. Kenneth Taylor featured for Holland and looked tired. Ja-Ryong Kim too (and for him I need always consider that long travel to South Korea and back takes an extra toll and adds fatigue). Can Tas’ morale didn’t look good enough to start him in a derby match and we were without van Axel Dongen, so I decided to go all in against PSV and rotate players against AS Monaco (hoping that Frenchmen will come with fairly defensive tactics anyway). The first half was an even battle, but we got lucky in 16’ when Kim crossed the ball and PSV’s centre-back Valeriy Bondar got his foot to it, but directed it into his own goal - a lucky break for us. We seemed to take initiative around 30’ and Quenten Hose doubled our lead with a placed shot after John Meeuwis found him with a lovely through ball (that’s why he should be playing as a CFa!). PSV had an opportunity to score from a penalty late in the first half after Rajkovic fouled their midfielder in a set piece situation, but Riswan Sinaga showed good reactions to save it and we went to half-time with a 2:0 lead. I have to say that we were a bit fortunate in this first half and a lot of things went our way - an own goal, a missed penalty - so PSV could say that they played well enough as an away team, but were unlucky not to get a goal. They tried harder in the second half and I needed to make changes. Ja-Ryong Kim came off at half-time, because he looked now already too tired and Anass Sarpong came on. Quenten Hose pulled something in 52’ and I took him off as a precaution, because I didn’t want to lose another winger. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson came on to the AMR position and he really changed the game, scoring a beautiful goal on a counter (a lovely daisy cutter from 21 metres) and added another one later (another through ball from John Meeuwis). That destroyed PSV Eindhoven. Our opponents could say that according to xG it was a fairly even match, but the scoreboard says otherwise and our fans went home delighted. That win sent us back to the top of the table and it adds to our confidence after positive results in the past two weeks. Riswan Sinaga was voted for the player of the match because of his crucial penalty save and our clean sheet. Our home game against AS Monaco offered one of the most forgettable first half ever (at least according to TV commentators), because not a lot happened, but we managed to score from a set piece (Meeuwis on target) and had a narrow lead at half time. In the second half we managed to get a slightly better control over the match and when Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and Koen Verlijsdonk came on, they quickly combined for our second goal. It looked like the game was decided, but AS Monaco scored from a corner and tried to initiate their come-back. However Hlynsson’s second through ball to Verlijsdonk in injury time decided the matter - a pretty good 3:1 win at home. Newly-promoted RKC Waalwijk should have been easy prey for us, but they had a new manager for that match, new formation as well (that our scouts couldn’t predict) and at first they offered fierce resistance to us at Mandemakers Stadion. Our defence in turn looked rather error prone and so we allowed them to build too many dangerous attacks, until from 30’ we had more control in midfield and finished the first half with two goals from Quenten Hose, who stepped up and looked like the composure player in attack. Koen Verlijsdonk added our third goal in the second half and it looked like game over, but RKC continued to create good chances from counter-attacks and Riswan Sinaga had to make several brilliant saves to keep his clean sheet. It remained 3:0 and looked like a comfortable win, but RKC’s xG was above 1.00 and they probably felt that they should have scored at least once in the second half. I wasn’t at all happy with our defence and the second half was full of complacency from some players, so despite the result not too much to praise. Tactics and Players I had no reason to change our tactics, because at home we’ll start with our usual positive 4-2-3-1 against anyone. It means my preparation for those games has been quite easy. At the same time I’ve turned more attention to players’ training ratings (and offered some constructive criticism, even making my squad selection decisions based on player ratings). We’ve been relatively injury free in the last 1-2 seasons, but that lucky streak came to an end in the match against Sparta Rotterdam - one hard tackle was all that it took and Amourricho van Axel Dongen had to come off on a stretcher. My medical staff later confirmed it’s the dreaded cruciate ligament injury that will keep him out for 6-9 months. It’s safe to say van Axel Dongen’s season is over and we could expect him back around next August. That’s a big loss not only because of his quality, but also because he could play in both right and left flank in different roles and his versatility is difficult to replace. All the players were really compassionate and tried to make him feel better, but I could notice Quenten Hose and Anass Sarpong working hard in training and being more alert, because they probably know it’s the best chance for them to impress this season. Can Tas voiced his unhappiness with his lack of starts. At the moment it’s pretty much an isolated issue, but I hope to involve him more in the DLPd role so hopefully he’ll get over it. For now, I’m afraid that I have to accept that his morale is affected by that disappointment. That row escalated even further in November when some of the clubs from Ukraine and Portugal made bids for him - I would be prepared to let him go, but to get around £15m for a young player who is worth £20-25m seems like a giveaway. On the other hand it looks quite difficult to rebuild that relationship that was damaged after some poor conversations between me and the player, so in the long term he’s perhaps not willing to play for Ajax and I need to move him forward anyway. November international break went well, although I received news from some minor knocks and traumas that our players suffered in training while with their international squads. At least everybody returned fully fit to our next match against PSV Eindhoven and Richard Svec looked especially happy because he made his debut for Slovakia in this window. A great moment for our 18 years old left-back. Estonian right-back Mark Mõttus scored his first goal for his country in a 2:2 draw with Bosnia & Herzegovina. When I look at our team stats it seems goals and assists have been distributed nicely between players. John Meeuwis has scored nine goals so far, Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and van Axel Dongen have seven to their name, but van Axel Dongen is injured, so there will be no additional stats coming for him. Kenneth Taylor carried us a lot at the start of the season, but now Quenten Hose has taken over and also Koen Verlijsdonk scored his first goals of the season in November - the fact that all those players step up in turn and perform well gives a lot of confidence, actually. Player of the Month: Quenten Hose - the right winger has really taken over after van Axel Dongen injury. He scored four goals in November and has one assist to his name from those five games, but his average rating is 7.90 in the last five matches, showing incredible form. Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. PSV Eindhoven - a lovely daisy cutter into the bottom corner, taken from 21 metres News item in my inbox confirms we’re still the best developing club in Europe and no less than 89 of our former players are currently playing in the top five leagues of Europe. Eredivisie Good results in November have brought us back to the table and we have a three point lead at the moment. The rest of contenders seem to struggle a bit - Feyenoord is without a win in three games, PSV lost three in a row in November and FC Utrecht has collected a lot of draws. Vitesse look the most dangerous from this bunch. The PEC Zwolle board made the decision and appointed former RKC Waalwijk manager Ron Elsen as their new head coach. Interesting decision from him, because Zwolle is clearly more struggling this season and are currently 17th, so it’s a bit unclear why he wanted to make that switch, although I agree that Zwolle is a bigger club with a slightly higher reputation at this point. RKC Waalwijk in turn hired Hasan Kilic as their new manager. Champions League We’re leading our group, but to finish first and get the first seed for the knockout round we need a point against AC Milan in the last round. The match in Amsterdam finished 3:2 and because games between two clubs are the first tie-breakers, a 0:1 defeat at San Siro wouldn’t be good enough for us. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 December 2032 Fixtures and Results November was good for us, and partly because the most difficult games were at Johan Cruijff Arena and home advantage helped us a lot in those matches. December seems to be a bit different - we have a trip to San Siro coming up and the Klassieker Derby coming up right after that and before Christmas we’ll go to Arnhem to meet Vitesse in what could be one of the toughest games of our Eredivisie season. But at least the draw in KNVB Beker has been favourable and we got amateurs Spakenburg in the second round. In most seasons we had to play at least Keuken Kampioen Divisie level clubs in the second round, so this should be a lot easier and at least one game where we could relax a little and rotate a lot. Our trip to Sittard offered little to be happy about. It was a drab match from us and we struggled to create chances and (almost like from a movie scenario) Fortuna scored from 24 metres in 88’. For a moment it looked like we would return with a very unfair defeat, but Quenten Hose stepped up - his header hit the crossbar, but in the next attack he found an equaliser to rescue us a point. It was a bit unlucky for us to concede that goal, because Fortuna didn’t get any real chances in the match and our defence looked solid enough, but that’s football and I have to be happy with our come-back, at least. The battle at San Siro was just as difficult as expected. AC Milan controlled the first half almost completely. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi struggled to contain Rafael Leao on our right flank and indeed he scored in 25’ to make it 0:1. We got our first good opportunity of the match no earlier than 54’, but generally had to defend against AC Milan attacks and when Hamed Traore hit the post in 70’ I felt we were lucky not to be 0:2 or 0:3 behind. But this time the football gods smiled on us - Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson produced a moment of magic, got away from his defender and sent the ball into the far post from a fairly narrow angle - an excellent goal and that left AC Milan too little time to respond. In fact, we had a promising free kick in injury time, but Kenneth Taylor couldn’t get it over the wall. Our shooting was just 6/4 in this game, but we got the goal and the result we needed to win the group. Feyenoord came to Johan Cruijff Arena with a very defensive game plan and 5-2-3 WB formation that packed their third with players, so it was really difficult to find space in attack. Neither of the two teams could create anything in the first half, although a couple of our attempts landed against woodwork. Feyenoord, in turn, were happy to defend and didn’t record any attempts in the first half. However, after the break their striker Simon Roger Nlandu headed against our crossbar to remind us that they, too, can attack. The breakthrough finally came in 73’ - Mohamed Tahiri came on for Peter Misidjan a couple of minutes later and while he has mostly featured in midfield, this time he was higher in AMCa position. It took just a few minutes until Prince Aning passed him the ball and Tahiri, with just some space around him in the box, curled it nicely into the top corner. An excellent strike, and a moment of individual skill just like that was needed to get us a valuable 1:0 win. Not the most exciting match in statistics - Feyenoord didn’t create any opportunities for themselves and we had just one half-chance in the whole game, and just 0.79 xG - but it’s so important to win those rival derbies. Also, three points to the table doesn’t hurt either. The Feyenoord manager Radhi Jaidi later admitted that I got under his skin with my pre-match comments. There seems to develop some sort of mutual dislike between me and Jaidi that will spice future press conferences, because he’s not happy to lose to us and I don’t think his conduct after those losses has been good enough. Just a few days later Jaidi left Feyenoord to take the new position at West Ham United, so I got rid of him in Eredivisie. Small amateur side Spakenburg were unfortunate to play their KNVB Beker match at Johan Cruijff Arena in front of 45,000 spectators, and they were mercilessly beaten 8:0 by my youngsters and rotation players. Mohamed Tahiri shone in the first half, scoring a hat-trick and looking excellent from set pieces (also scored one goal from a free kick). Koen Verlijsdonk also finished the match with three goals. Spakenburg finished the match with 9 men and that didn’t make the task easier for them. From our side Anass Sarpong received a red card after a careless tackle in the second half, but his dismissal didn’t affect us much. We had over 40 attempts in this game with 6 clear cut chances (16 chances in total) and xG over 7.00 - Spakenburg players couldn’t wait for this one to get over. FC Groningen could be a tough team to break - they proved as much at Euroborg and showed really good defence in the first half against us at Johan Cruijff Arena, but after the break cracks began to appear. Anass Sarpong played on the left wing for us and Groningen struggled to contain him. At first Jermoumi found Sarpong in front of the goal with a cross and although the attempt was blocked by the arriving defender, the loose ball fell to John Meeuwis who scored into the empty goal. Then Sarpong was fouled twice in three minutes inside the FC Groningen box. Kenneth Taylor bottled the first penalty, but scored from the second and at 2:0 it looked like a sure deal. Anass Sarpong later found John Meeuwis in the box with a nice cross and our striker doubled his tally to wrap things up at 3:0. Excellent second half performance and with 4 clear cut chances that we created, FC Groningen had to accept that their defence didn’t hold for a full ninety minutes in this match. Then it was time to travel to Arnhem and meet Vitesse. Our closest competitors had dropped some more points and were five points behind us before the match, so it was a chance for us to take the gap to eight before Christmas if we played at our best level. It was a tough game and at half time we were trailing 0:1. Both teams had one good chance in the first half; Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson saw his attempt being tipped over by the goalkeeper, but Vitesse’s Prince Lomboto stunned us on the counter-attack and our opponents looked fairly confident after that goal. I thought to myself that we might need to take more risks in the second half and maybe snatch a draw, but turning the game around didn’t seem possible, until Vitesse’s midfielder Luka Bleick received his second yellow card in 59’ and was sent off - the first event that changed things for us. The second was Quenten Hose who came on and found an equaliser and for the remaining 20-30 minutes we kept Vitesse under pressure in their third, until we finally played their defence apart in injury time. Hose was again in the middle of things - he had a decent look on goal, but played the ball unselfishly to Anass Sarpong who was in even better position and could score into the empty net. Great comeback win for us, crucial points to the table and a big lead going into the Winter break. Vitesse could rue their red card, but I remember that things played out almost in exactly the same way one year ago when we also met Vitesse at Gelredome in the last match before Christmas. They took the lead back then as well, but were left with 10 men in 59’ exactly like it happened now and eventually we ran out as 3:2 winners. History repeated itself a lot in this match. Vitesse’s manager John van den Brom probably wonders why they couldn’t finish the game without a red card against us and how to keep that hard-fought 1:0 lead at GelreDome next time. Tactics and Players It’s been a difficult month in the winger's department. We already miss Amourricho van Axel Dongen, but Ja-Ryong Kim was also sidelined for those weeks with a training injury and it means we missed two of our best left wingers. Without proper substitutions Quenten Hose and Anass Sarpong look fatigued. I tried Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson on the left flank in De Klassieker Derby, but he had a really poor match in an unfamiliar role, so it’s been a struggle. I don’t have any good options from Jong Ajax either (Bence Kertesz is away on loan), so we’ve left to struggle until Kim returns after Christmas. Can Tas finally settled down and let me know that he’ll be content to stay at Ajax for the time being. I still believe he has potential as a midfielder, although he’s unhappy with his new position training. Claidel Muringen, however, has failed to sign a new contract with us, although there have been two rounds of negotiations in December. It looks like the player himself is expecting a new deal and wants to stay in Amsterdam, but his agent is one of the most stubborn ones I’ve met in recent seasons, demanding now pretty much £30,000 p/w for an average squad player and every time I try to push it down for two thousand pounds, he cuts the negotiations and pretends to be butthurt. My next advice will be for Muringen to sack his agent, because I’m not sure he has the player’s best interests in mind. On a more positive note - our 16 years old defender Frank Goossens started to train with our first team and he was handed his debut in the game against Spakenburg from a substitution. He almost found the goal there as well, heading against the post from a corner, but that fairy tale didn’t happen. Nevertheless he’s an exceptional talent and I expect him to make his breakthrough soon. Player of the Month: Mohamed Tahiri - the midfielder didn’t start in all games (and his average rating was intact because he didn’t feature in the difficult match in Milan), but he was solid when he played, scored a crucial goal for us in the Klassieker Derby and added a hat-trick in the cup game. Goal of the Month: Mohamed Tahiri vs. Feyenoord Rotterdam - really well taken strike from the substitute in a crucial moment of the derby Youth Intake Preview Looks incredibly promising. A striker, centre-back and attacking midfielder. We don’t really need a talented striker (after last season’s intake), but I’ll take a talented midfielder with a determined personality, thankyouverymuch. Eredivisie Strong results in December have given us an eight points lead in the table and that’s a pretty huge gap around Christmas. We’ve gathered 40 points from the first 17 games and that’s enough to mount a solid title challenge. The other clubs are struggling with inconsistency a little and nobody has been able to put together a really strong first half of the season. Surprise package ADO Den Haag find themselves in European places in December - they’ve been in really good form so far and clear overachievers this season, but after Christmas their manager Patrick Kluivert left for new challenges and I suspect it will affect their performances after New Year. There are four clubs distinctly at the bottom of the table, but Almere City have turned things around a little in December and look very optimistic - five games without a defeat, including victories over their nearest rivals have raised them above relegation zone, while Fortuna Sittard have dropped lower and lower in the table, eventually costing their manager and club legend Mark van Bommel his position as a manager. Fortuna lured Almere City’s Maurice Steijn away (and I’m wondering whether Almere’s good form stopped there). There have been a lot of manager movements in December. As I already mentioned, Rahdi Jaidi left Feyenoord Rotterdam and our rivals hired Andreas Heraf as his successor. David De Gea was sacked by FC Utrecht right before Christmas - Utrecht are aiming for European places at least and De Gea hasn’t been able to give them enough points to do that, so their board probably felt it was time for a change. And last (but not least) FC Emmen’s Steve Mandanda left his post to take on a new adventure at Lille Champions League One point at San Siro helped us to win the group, but the group stage offered little surprises and all the teams who progressed looked fairly strong. I could have hoped to get Lyon or Borussia Dortmund in the first knockout round, but instead we will go against Inter. So, back to San Siro we go. That’s a tough match-up and we’d do really well to reach the quarter finals. Other clubs from Holland failed to surprise - FC Utrecht picked up just one point in group A and finished fourth. PSV managed to surprise PSG 2:1 at Eindhoven, but couldn’t capitalise on that win, and a draw and defeat to Panathinaikos kept them also in fourth place with four points. Certainly a disappointment for them. In the Europa League Feyenoord finished in second place in their group and moved forward to the first knockout round. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 11 Author Share Posted June 11 January 2033 Fixtures and Results We have just one away game in January that is followed by four in a row at Johan Cruijff Arena. That should be a huge advantage, including the fact that MVV Maastricht is not the strongest opponent in the KNVB Beker. We started with a trip to a brand new ADO Den Haag Stadion. ADO switched their old Cars Jean Stadion for the new one that has more than 8,000 increased capacity - but sold it out for our match anyway, so perhaps should have built it even bigger. It was our first visit to the new grounds and it looked awesome. Despite the new crib our opponents succumbed to a 0:4 defeat and I suspect it was partly because of Patrick Kluivert’s departure from their manager position. The caretaker switched to 4-4-2 from their usual 4-3-3 DM and it was clear that there’s a bit of confusion with roles and expectations on how to play. We took the lead from a penalty in the first half (a very doubtful foul on Jermoumi that was surprisingly held by VAR) and I encouraged the players at half time. It brought instant results in a goal right after the kick-off. Another penalty by Taylor made it 3:0 and substitute Koen Verlijsdonk completed the rout with a simple tap-in. Two penalties didn’t make things easier for ADO, but I expected a sharper attack from them, but their pressure wasn’t really good enough to cause us any real problems defensively. I rotated the team for our KNVB Beker match against lower league side MVV Maastricht and the result was a narrow 1:0 win. We wasted three moments during one attack at the end of the first half, but ultimately had to rely on the second half penalty to score the winner. Our opponents defended deep and our attacking players lacked familiarity with each other, so for that reason it wasn’t our best performance (but it wasn’t our best eleven either, so everything’s fine). sc Heerenveen was another club that lost their manager right before our match and their 4-4-1-1- formation was not what I expected, but that didn’t help them at all. We took the lead in the first half after Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson cut in from the left flank and scored with a near post finish. Things got worse for Heerenveen right after the second half kick-off - their left-back received his second yellow card and was sent off and soon after that we were cruising - our attack ran smoothly, chances and goals were flowing. Birthday boy Hlynsson (he turned 29 on the match day) completed his hat-trick with a curling strike from 15 metres and finished with a 10.0 rating. Anass Sarpong hit the sixth nail to sc Heerenveen’s coffin with his injury time goal. It was a complete destruction in the second half. Heerenveen couldn’t make a single attempt in the game and nothing seemed to work for them tactically. Poor start to their new manager Anthony Knockaert. After such a good performance we failed to beat ADO Den Haag at home. Things started poorly for us when Ja-Ryong Kim had to come off with a muscle strain after just two minutes of football. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson gave us the lead, but Michal Dobosz equalised for ADO from a free kick. We had plenty of chances in the second half, including a penalty, but Kenneth Taylor (who had looked nervous throughout the match) sent his spot kick wide and his teammates failed to find the net too. It remained 1:1 in the end, despite our dominance in midfield and 17 corners. On the other hand the result marked our 50th game in a row without a defeat at Johan Cruijff Arena and that’s a huge achievement. The last game in January was a more routine win over small RKC Waalwijk. We failed to score again in the first half, and missed a penalty (again!) - this time John Meeuwis - but the second half goals from Anass Sarpong and Peter Misidjan brought us all three points. Our xG was 3.25 so we should have scored a lot more goals, but the result itself was OK, because I rested some key players and that contributed a little to our finishing efficiency. Tactics and Players Easier schedule has allowed us to rotate without pressure, but losing Amourricho van Axel Dongen and Ja-Ryong Kim to injuries will certainly affect us in February. Anass Sarpong can expect more playing time on the left wing and Quenten Hose needs to carry the load on the right. Can Tas has got more playing time and he’s satisfied with his minutes, although still unsure about his new role. What’s more important to me is that he’s been able to perform fairly well as a DLPd and that’s the reason I rejected some half-decent bids for him in the January transfer window. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson has taken his goal scoring tally to 14 in all competitions. John Meeuwis has 12, but what is more important is that he’s starting to excel as CFa and, although not scoring as many, has assisted a number of goals in January and his through balls have cut Eredivisie level defences apart. My biggest complaint about our goal scoring is that we’ve been poor from set pieces - we missed two penalties in January and although we had a lot of corners we’ve rarely got any decent shots on target from those set pieces. And when Kenneth Taylor is not on the pitch our free kicks don't seem that dangerous either. Player of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson - played in three games, but scored five goals in those and a brilliant hat-trick against sc Heerenveen Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. sc Heerenveen - curled into the top corner from the edge of the area. Eredivisie Healthy lead in the table. That allows us to focus on the Champions League and cup games in February. We had a quiet transfer window, but both Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven strengthened their squad and spent around £20m in January, adding some good signings. I need to scout their teams and attacking line-ups more thoroughly before our next derby matches to be prepared. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 February 2033 Fixtures and Results We should beat Almere City on a canter, but the next four games look very tough and close in calendar. As expected, we had no troubles beating Almere City in the first match of the month - Quenten Hose opened it up with a volley, Anass Sarpong scored twice to secure our lead and Peter Misidjan completed the rout with a penalty in the second half. I had the luxury to rotate some defensive and midfield players ahead of more difficult matches. We still have to keep in mind that we’re very thin in wingers’ department at the moment and a few of our key players (namely Ognjen Rajkovic) do not have the best natural fitness, so 3-4 tough games in a row might pose a challenge for them, so they’re not perhaps fresh enough unless rested beforehand. The cup quarter final started well for us - the first half as a whole was an even battle between two teams, but Quenten Hose found a goal with his powerful strike in 15’ and despite not creating any good chances we went to the half-time with a 1:0 lead. Unfortunately AZ improved a lot after the break. Their centre-back Petko Hristov equalised in 53’ with a header from a corner and we couldn’t find our rhythm. Luis Diaz then made it 1:2 late in 84’ and we were staring at defeat, but Peter Misidjan headed in in the last minute of normal time to score a late equaliser and keep us in the game. We had the initiative in extra time and a couple of good chances (where we probably should have scored the winner), but it went all the way to a thrilling penalty shoot-out. Both teams’ fourth players missed their spot kick and eventually Rik Vos couldn’t score in the ninth round of penalties. AZ won the shoot-out and we were out of the KNVB Beker. Playing 120 minutes in the cup affected our preparation for the Topper Derby - Kristian Nökkvi Hlnysson was too tired to start, Ognjen Rajkovic and Anass Sarpong weren’t at 100% either. Tactically I opted for a balanced mentality and that seemed to work out well in the first half - John Meeuwis had one decent chance in 12’ that he missed, but in 20’ PSV’s goalkeeper Ivo Grbic couldn’t hold onto Sarpong’s cross from our left and the ball bounced to Meeuwis who slotted it in from close range. I was pleased with our first half performance - defence looked okay, we didn’t concede real chances to PSV and had the lead, but in the second half I found that PSV were more attacking and they started to gain initiative. Unfortunately, Hose’s foul gave them a penalty (a pretty harsh one in my opinion) and that made it 1:1. Quenten Hose was forced off with a knee injury in 80’ and because I had made all my substitutions at that point, we battled 10 vs. 11 for the last 10-15 minutes. That was the period when PSV really had momentum and a great chance to score a late winner, but their striker Noor Kassim headed against the crossbar from point blank range. Eventually, we held onto a 1:1 draw and I was happy to return with a point. A draw from a difficult away match looked good enough and we were in a real sticky situation after Hose’s injury, so that’s good enough. Unfortunately Quenten Hose will be out for at least 5-6 weeks with sprained knee ligaments. He will miss our Champions League matches against Inter and most of March fixtures as well. The second match against AZ Alkmaar was as difficult as the first one. Teams were worthy opponents to each other in the first half. Defence was on exceptionally high level and there were no real chances, although Peter Misidjan saw his powerful header rattle the crossbar in 32’. We were awarded the penalty in the beginning of the second half, although I couldn’t see where the foul really was. AZ Alkmaar players certainly felt it was harsh, but referee Joey Kooij’s decision stood after VAR had checked it and Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot which ultimately proved to be the winner. AZ had one good chance in 58’ when their winger Loek Verbeek got through, but his attempt hit the post. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson played on the right wing, because we missed Quenten Hose due to injury and he was relentlessly hacked by AZ players. After he needed medical care for the third time he ultimately came off at the end of the match, but his gashed leg needs more time to recover and he will miss at least a few games in the next two weeks. That’s a real loss ahead of the Champions League games. The away match against Inter was really tough, as expected. We conceded an early penalty (again, a harsh decision from the referee Michael Oliver), but Riswan Sinaga made a brilliant save to deny Lautaro Martinez. Inter (and Martinez) got their goal, however, in 32’ and Nicolo Barella made it 2:0 for them in 82’. We had a couple of half-decent moments, but no real chances, and the closest we got to scoring was Mohamed Tahiris attempt in 84’ that curled against the crossbar, but we didn’t have enough luck to find a goal from those attempts. So, on one hand a fairly disappointing performance, but at the same time I have to say that the Inter players were head and shoulders above us individually, and with some key players (van Axel Dongen, Hlynsson) missing, it’s no wonder we couldn’t find anything in attack. Returning with 0:2 is not the worst result either - at least it leaves us something to play for in Amsterdam. The last match against Fortuna Sittard was again one of those easy home games against a struggling smaller team. In the first half we didn’t look very good, though - Olivier Aertssen gave us the lead from a set piece, but Fortuna’s midfielder Chris Lokesa seemed to be in some sort of free role and occasionally found himself alone behind our defensive line. He had a great chance to equalise in 40’, but the shot went wide and we kept our lead at half-time, only to start our second half very strong - John Meeuwis scored after Aertssen sent an accurate long ball forward for him. Kenneth Taylor scored his 10th goal of the season after Peter Misidjan was pushed in the box and although Chris Lokesa did get the goal eventually in 67’, Misidjan made it 4:1 and that was it. We didn’t take too many attempts, but had 3 clear cut chances in the game and executed those quality opportunities well. In summary, there were a lot of difficult battles against stronger teams, but at least we look fairly good against smaller opponents in the league. Tactics and Players Dropping out from the KNVB Beker was a disappointment for the board, but also for players who expected to win a domestic cup this season. I personally couldn’t understand the importance of it - we’ve been crowned champions 10 seasons in a row and it’s important to continue to win the league and we’re leading the table by some margin this season. The cup is always a bit tricky - from the quarter finals you could go out if just one game doesn’t go well or you play stronger opponents on away stadium, so it’s not guaranteed. However, the issue forced me to organise a team meeting where I tried to explain that the blame for defeat in that match was not only on my shoulders, but we’re in this situation together with players and have to improve together. I carefully avoided promises about strengthening our squad or changing tactics, and eventually most of the disgruntled players agreed that we should just buckle up and improve together. Tactically I opted to play with a balanced mentality against AZ and PSV in away games and the result was… well, balanced. Less entertaining football, but certainly more responsible at the back and perhaps not the worst option in away games against stronger Eredivisie teams. However, the biggest tactical challenge was approaching the Inter match at Giuseppe Meazza. In the end I left both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri on the bench and paired Kenneth Taylor with Can Tas in deep midfield, with Can Tas in BWMd role - definitely a bit new for him but his tackling and work rate should allow him to excel in that specific position. The idea solidified our defence, but our attack wasn’t sharp enough and I wasn’t sure if it was because I should tweak roles and instructions for players at AMC and ST or because we didn’t have our best players available for the match and our attacking midfield was just overpowered (and outsmarted) by the Inter defence. Ja-Ryong Kim was finally fit and returned to selection in the AZ Alkmaar league match, but Quenten Hose’s injury means that our problems in the wingers department continue. It’s fair to say I have no options, because I need to play whoever is fit and for ninety minutes straight, even if they perform poorly. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson is one option I could switch to our right flank (and we did that in the KNVB Beker match), but on the left I have no better alternative than unambitious Tomas Koikkalainen who is nowhere near Eredivisie level. But our problems didn’t stop here in February and as Kim was getting ready to return Hlynsson was injured in the league match against AZ and now he has to sit out for a few games. Some new contracts were signed in February - Kenneth Taylor and Amourricho van Axel Dongen extended their deals for a few years on fairly similar terms as their current contracts. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - very difficult choice again this month, because most of the players have been extremely inconsistent with their performances, but Taylor has been more-less solid even against stronger opponents and wrapped up higher than 7.50 average rating in six games, also scoring two penalties Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. AZ Alkmaar - a powerful strike from winger Eredivisie We retained our ten point lead in the table and at the bottom, the battle against relegation continues between four small teams. PSV Eindhoven lost their manager Kim Bergrstrand in February, because he decided to take on a new challenge, switched to international management and took over Switzerland. PSV interviewed a number of familiar faces (including Mark van Bommel) for the position, but ultimately brought in Bo Hendriksen from FC Kaiserslautern, who is a new face in Eredivisie, having never managed in Holland. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 25 Author Share Posted June 25 March 2033 Fixtures and Results We’re out of the cup and the Eredivisie standings are not really interesting. We’re not under pressure in the league and can maintain our relaxed approach to domestic games. Not reaching the KNVB Beker semi final also means that our schedule in March has one less game in it. We stunned FC Twente at De Grolsch Veste with the first goal in 17 seconds - Anass Sarpong found John Meeuwis with a cut-back and we were leading before Twente players could even touch the ball. Sarpong set up Ja-Ryong Kim for our second and it looked like game over already, but then FC Twente started to get themselves into the game - our centre-backs looked suddenly very error-prone when marking their strikers and only poor finishing from them allowed us to keep our clean sheet at half-time. Can Tas was again complaining about his playing time in the previous week and received assurances that he’ll get his chances. He started in midfield today and scored an excellent header from a free kick to make it 3:0 before half-time. We had a strong lead, but FC Twente still had better chances in the second half - they eventually scored from one of those, missed a couple of headers from point blank range, but then our young defender Frank Goossens headed in from a corner to make it 4:1 in injury time - his first ever Ajax goal! That was it. FC Twente came to the match with a positive mentality and that showed - they were good with the ball, created decent chances and had a number of attempts on goal, but our finishing was so much more clinical and it seemed like an effortless 4:1 win for us. We seemed to struggle against Heracles at Johan Cruijff Arena a bit - they had a couple of good chances in the first half and several of our players looked nervous, but then Ognjen Rajkovic headed in from a free kick to score his first goal of the season and John Meeuwis hit an excellent strike just a minute later to make it 2:0 and ease our nervousness a little. The second half was much better in terms of confidence, but we allowed Heracles to score a consolation goal from a corner in injury time, so Riswan Sinaga lost his clean sheet bonus. I was a lot more happy with our display after half-time, though. We had a slight chance to overturn our 0:2 deficit against Inter at home, but it didn’t happen. After a fairly even first half where Inter held a slight initiative (but neither of the teams created any chances) they took charge of the match in the second half with two goals. Our substitute Koen Verlijsdonk reached the target and we had a couple of decent moments in the second half to level the score but our game really started to run well after we were already 0:2 down, so we didn’t put Inter under real pressure. I have to say that over two legs they were clearly the better team, especially when I compare individual skills and quality of players, so we didn’t punch above our weight this time and had to drop out in the first knockout round. Our last match in March was against Excelsior and right before the international break. I had an option to request postponement, but decided not to do so and played with the players who weren’t with international teams already. We could field a decent first eleven, although our options were limited and the bench had just a couple of players. Kenneth Taylor started as BBMs in the game and he found himself with the ball in the box just four minutes into the game and scored. Unfortunately we conceded just two minutes later - our not-so-well-practised defensive line allowed Mees Rijks to run behind and Frank Goossens was not quick enough to catch him. Calm finish with good technique and it was 1:1. The last fifteen minutes in the first half belonged to us again - Peter Misidjan restored our lead with an excellent strike and Koen Verlijsdonk scored with a fine header to send us at half-time with a solid 3:1 lead. Excelsior showed their teeth once again in the second half - their corner in 65’ led to a goal, but Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson scored just a minute later to make it 4:2 and put the result beyond doubt. I was quite happy with our excellent finishing in this match, but we were rather error-prone defensively and there’s a lot of room for improvement. Tactics and Players Tactically I didn’t experiment much in March, only tweaking a couple of things in two matches. The first was striker roles against Inter, but they didn’t seem to make much difference, because the difference in class between two teams was just too significant. The second one was a bit forced - Kenneth Taylor got to play as BBMs in the last match and was excellent, finishing with a goal and assist. Food for thought in the future. Continuing with midfield department, Can Tas has got some game time and is currently pleased with his number of games and Claidel Muringen still hasn’t signed a new contract (his agent is as relentless in negotiations as he was before and there are number of clubs interested in his services, so they don’t back down from their £30,000 p/w wage demands). At least we scored a good number of goals in March. John Meeuwis has now found the mark 16 times. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson has scored 15 goals and given 10 assists this season. Kenneth Taylor has 11 goals (most of them penalties, but still) and Koen Verlijsdonk reached 10 with his header against Excelsior. Young Frank Goossens scored his first goal for the club in March and things are looking bright for him. Player of the Month: Anass Sarpong - another difficult choice because of inconsistent performances, but Anass Sarpong was excellent in the first two matches, gave three assists in them, before missing the Inter game and being away with the international team during the Excelsior game. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Heracles Almelo - great strike from the forward. The list of Top50 young talents was published and three Ajax players were nominated (although none of them in high position) - Anass Sarpong, Bence Kertesz and Loet van Fessem. Youth Intake 2033 I was promised a good youth intake by our HoYD and indeed it was an excellent bunch of players that came in. Three great prospects and another handful of good talented youngsters and what was the most important aspect for me - most of the boys had better than average personality traits. I’ve become more frustrated every year when our best youngsters are unambitious or with low determination, but that’s not the case this time. Alexander Kalaitzis Young and talented centre-back. Only weakness is his lack of technique and it’s unlikely he’ll become a world class ball-playing defender, but he possesses a good work rate and is brave enough for a defender to win challenges. Luis Carlos Croes Young striker with Aruban roots, but Dutch citizenship. Decent finisher and has some flair in his game. His fairly loyal personality hints that he might lack ambition. Has some qualities that need some work (dribbling, long shots and aerial ability), but looks like a good striker material. Jort van Leeuwen Right-footed left winger. Fickle personality, but that might be mentored - his determination (15) is promising enough, so I’m not overly worried. Skilled with the ball at his feet and has good acceleration, but lacks composure and finishing. Eredivisie We have a 14 point lead with just six games to go and the title looks as good as ours. Vitesse dropped some points and allowed our rivals Feyenoord to close the gap and take the runners-up position. At the bottom of the table RKC Waalwijk and PEC Zwolle are likely to be relegated. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 28 Author Share Posted June 28 April 2033 Fixtures and Results Four league games in April - the first match is at home, but then three on the road and opponents get gradually more difficult with FC Utrecht and Feyenoord waiting to host us. We started with a narrow 1:0 win at home over FC Emmen. Our opponents were without a league win since Christmas and it’s a small miracle they’re still 14th in the table and not in the relegation zone. We controlled the match from start to finish, but were wasteful with our goal scoring opportunities. Both John Meeuwis and Anass Sarpong wasted a couple of chances and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson hit the post, but at least Meeuwis played well his CFa role and found teammates with well-measured through balls to create chances, so when Prince Aning finally scored late in the first half it was well deserved goal. We couldn’t add to it in the second half, but we were really solid defensively and didn’t concede any decent chances for them, so it was OK. We secured our title before the next match with Sparta Rotterdam, because Feyenoord were against all odds beaten 0:2 by RKC Waalwijk and that clinched the trophy for us. So no pressure in the last five games and a chance to try something new if we wish to do so. The game itself offered an excellent first half when we attacked in good patterns. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson found a lot of space between Sparta lines and his runs and passes created havoc in their defence. Hlynsson scored our first goal and Quenten Hose volleyed in his free kick late in the first half - overall a very deserved lead at half-time. However, everything changed in the second half - Sparta’s Olvido Fer scored from a narrow angle in 58’ and Riswan Sinaga dropped the ball in 72’ to allow Roel Weis score the equaliser. We suddenly struggled to put Sparta under pressure and our opponent subsequently started to search for the winner, but eventually our substitute Anass Sarpong stunned them on a counter (another assist from Hlynsson) to score the late winner and take the game. We took the lead early at Galgenwaard and then switched to a balanced mentality that kept the match under control nicely. We created just a couple of good chances in the game, but at the same time kept FC Utrecht quiet too - the closest they got to our goal was a header from a corner that landed against our crossbar. At the same time we controlled possession and tempo of the match nicely. Not the most entertaining football on display, but very effective tactically and I learned a few things in the process. In 51’ their left-back was sent off after a two-footed tackle on Quenten Hose and it got easier, but we held our grip firm over proceedings and led the game to an end with a 1:0 lead. De Klassieker derby at De Kuip went even better. I retained our positive mentality, but tweaked down the pressing frequency a little bit. Both teams looked very well organised defensively in the first half, but John Meeuwis found Quenten Hose once with a through ball and the right winger finished with a placed shot. Feyenoord had to take more risks after the break and it paid off at first - David Kalokoh was unmarked at our near post and he equalised, but then Claidel Muringen found John Meeuwis on the run with a defence splitting pass and that goal secured all three points from away derby. Nicely done. So, four straight wins in April, even though we could play without pressure and confidence is high. Players Fortunately, we’ve avoided major injuries towards the end of the season and I’m happy to report that Amourricho van Axel Dongen has started the rehabilitation phase in his recovery from a cruciate ligament injury. Hopefully he’ll be fit for our pre-season camp in July. I’ve managed to placate Can Tas’ request for game time and he’s more content with his role in the squad. Claidel Muringen’s agent is still impossible to negotiate with and I’m afraid he’s about to leave Ajax when his contract runs out in June. He’s not short of suitors, I have to admit, but I’m not willing to pay over £30,000 p/w for his services. At the same time I’m constantly following how our youngsters develop. Young Serbian winger Sladan Krunic was asked to join first team training in Ajax an he made his debut against FC Emmen Player of the Month: Ja-Ryong Kim - the south Korean winger was under scrutiny at the end of March, but put in some very good performances in April Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. Sparta Rotterdam - technically outstanding volley from a free kick Eredivisie Feyenoord have pushed themselves up in the table, but AZ Alkmaar have had a great form late in the season and they’ve reached into the top three. Vitesse have dropped some places and PSV are still looking for their form. However, they won the KNVB Beker final in April and got some silverware to show for this season. At the bottom of the table RKC Waalwijk and PEC Zwolle are going to be relegated. Almere City and Fortuna Sittard battle for the 15th position (I’m rooting for Almere, of course, because that would give our youngsters a chance to go on loan to an Eredivisie team). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 May 2033 Fixtures and Results Two more games. Vitesse is always a tough opponent, but this time we have the home advantage. PEC Zwolle is already relegated and therefore unlikely to offer much resistance. I could rotate a little bit more against Zwolle and younger players got their chance to shine in front of home fans. At first it looked to work out well - an early penalty sent us away and Ja-Ryong Kim almost scored from a free kick five minutes later, but the ball cannoned back off the crossbar instead. We had a couple of half-chances until Zwolle winger Hamadi Kone broke our offside trap and equalised. Koen Verlijsdonk quickly restored our lead, but five more minutes later it was 2:2, as Remo de Ioris took advantage of the header that Richard Svec lost in our box. At half-time it was 2:2 and while I was happy with our attack, our defensive line lacked experience of playing together and it showed. We looked more cramped in attack after the break and struggled to create good chances, but eventually Mohamed Tahiri’s late winner in injury time proved to be the decisive moment in this match. Zwolle could say that they played really well at Johan Cruijff Arena, for a team that was about to be relegated, but ultimately fell a little short. The Vitesse match was an even battle in the first half and both teams defended well. Ja-Ryong Kim and Quenten Hose had decent chances, but it remained goalles until half-time. It was a very different game when teams returned - Hlynsson found Quenten Hose with a magnificent through ball to set up our first goal and then delivered a cross from our left that Hose headed in to make it 2:0. The winger had a chance to score a hat-trick in 66’, but this time the goalkeeper got his hand to his attempt. It’s safe to say we played excellent football in the second half and deserved to win this match. Tactically very good display and a clean sheet to go with it. Players and Tactics Not much to report over those two games. Tactically I’ve tweaked down our pressing a little bit more, while retaining our positive mentality and that has seemed to improve our defence - we’re keeping our formation better and don’t allow gaps that opposition could exploit while we move higher to press them. In games against Feyenoord and Vitesse it proved to be a really helpful change. A significant milestone was reached in May - Olivier Aertssen played his 300th league game for Ajax (he’s truly becoming a club legend for the past decade). Player of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson - outstanding creativity in the Vitesse match Goal of the Month: Mohamed Tahiri vs. PEC Zwolle - late winner from the attacking midfielder . Eredivisie That’s a little bit surprising. Feyenoord lost their momentum - they failed to find a win in their last five games and Vitesse snatched the runners-up place, with AZ Alkmaar in the third. PSV Eindhoven has also been a disappointment and their 7th position certainly doesn’t match their reputation. At the bottom of the table Almere City finished 16th, but comfortably won the relegation play-offs and retained their place in the top tier. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 (edited) It was an average season for us when I consider the results. We won Eredivisie by some margin (the gap was almost 20 points in the end), won the Johan Cruijff Schaal in August, but couldn’t reach the cup final and that was a disappointment, because KNVB Beker has eluded us for some seasons now. In the Champions League we had a good season - got through the group undefeated, but couldn’t beat the odds against a strong Inter side. The club finances are again increasing and after giving away more than £300m we’re nearing a £1bn balance again. One factor is definitely the crowds in Johan Cruijff Arena - we’ve set the new average attendance record for Eredivisie this season - almost 60,000 fans come to the stadium every home game. Players Our team was virtually unchanged compared to the previous season and the number of new players in the squad was also a little lower. We managed to avoid injuries, except for Amourricho van Axel Dongen who was out for almost half of the season with a cruciate ligament injury. In goal Riswana Sinaga started most of the matches and improved gradually throughout the season. He was awarded the Goalkeeper of the Year award in May and there’s more and more talk of him earning a call to the Holland national team. At least the manager Clarence Seedorf admits that he’s well aware of his form and capabilities. In defence I sometimes feel that we have room for improvement, although our main defensive line is in their prime at the moment. Rik Vos offers some height and aerial capability. Young full-backs Giorgio Jongebloet and Richard Svec could develop a little quicker in my opinion and 17 years old Frank Goossens has started to emerge as our future prospect in central defence. I basically dropped Can Tas as a centre-back and used Ognjen Rajkovic most of the season and he’s … OK in Eredivisie level, but has some flaws, too. In midfield I used mostly Kenneth Taylor with Claidel Muringen, but Can Tas played a lot of games after Christmas as a DLPd, but he could become a really versatile force in midfield - DLPd, BBMs and BWM are all positions where his tackling and work rate might excel. Mohamed Tahiri was good in both MC and AMC positions and Jaap Prinsen got less minutes than he hoped as a result. In attacking midfield our game relied a lot on Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. The Icelander got a double-double of goals and assists this season and was the main creative force in our forward play. van Axel Dongen’s injury left us little options on wings and Anass Sarpong had to carry a lot more load this season. As a result he put in several good displays and developed nicely. John Meeuwis is our number one striker, but once again he failed to collect 20 goals in a season and got stuck at 17. He’s sometimes very inconsistent, but at the same time I like his game as a CFa and he has an ability to play that through ball to wingers that I want to see in our attacks. Koen Verlijsdonk’s development has stalled a little and although he managed to score enough goals, I fear that his position in the squad might be under threat when our younger generation comes through the youth ranks. Other Teams Jong Ajax found it extremely hard to compete in KeukenKampioen Divisie this season and they were ultimately relegated from the division. It was no narrow margin - there was a five points gap between them and the team in 19th position. It means our reserves are without an active league from now on. At the same time our U-18 team won the competition by some margin and showed that we still have the best youth team in Holland. Coaching staff are doing some excellent work with our youngsters. Competitions The Champions League was an English affair since the semi-finals - four Premier League teams in the top four and ultimately Manchester City ran out as winners. City won the treble this season and 2032-2033 was an extremely successful year for them. Eredivisie Awards We collected a lot of individual awards after the season. Kenneth Taylor won the Golden Boot. Top three in the Young Player of the Year list came from Ajax (Loet van Fessem had a very good season on loan at Excelsior) and Riswan Sinaga was named as the Goalkeeper of the Season. I was named as Manager’s Manager of the Year once again and that is always a nice award to collect. Edited June 29 by Draakon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 Summer 2033 Transfer Window I have the core of the team under contract until 2035, so there’s just a few players who we’ll probably need to sit down with to negotiate new deals. We also reach to the end of the cycle when half of the first team players are nearing 30 years of age and less likely to attract large bids from big teams, so I don’t anticipate too many transfers this Summer, but at the same time I’m not too keen on keeping players with ‘balanced’ personality in the squad for too long, so if a decent bid comes in, then perhaps (depending on player, position and value) I might accept. One move that was almost unavoidable was Claidel Muringen’s departure for free. He has been a decent first team player for us, but he’s 22 years old and my coaching staff says he’s unlikely to improve beyond his 2,5* ability rating. At the same time his agent has refused all contract offers below £30,000 p/w and I’m just not willing to pay that kind of money for a squad player with a 7.02 average rating in Eredivisie. He had plenty of options on the table, but he eventually chose Vitesse (to my disappointment - I hoped he’d go abroad) for a mere £15,000 p/w which is still significantly higher than his previous deal in Ajax, but hey, I could have offered him £15,000-20,000 p/w to stay. But that’s football economics and agent relationships to you. Vitesse also made a bid for our other midfielder Jaap Prinsen - the boy who came through our youth ranks in 2030 at the top of his class, but due to his low determination never looked to fulfil his potential. He’s now 18 years old and my coaching staff rates his potential ability with just 2,5*, although his determination has increased from 3 to 6 after aggressive mentoring in the last three seasons. He could become a decent player, perhaps even at Eredivisie level, but not good enough to seriously compete for a place in Ajax first team. So, when Vitesse came with a bid that included £1,3m + clauses I accepted without regret and wished him everything good for his future career. The bigger bid came in for Ja-Ryong Kim - Everton wanted to sign him and I even accepted their £40m offer, but Kim snubbed their modest contract proposal and remained in the club. Loans Much of the attention goes to Jong Ajax - our reserve team fell out of the KeukenKampioen Divisie and will get much less frequent games in lower level in next season(s) to go, so I need to send any decent prospect out on loan this Summer and keep around only deadwood with youth contracts. I’m not trying to fix anything that is not broken, so Loet van Fessem will continue in Excelsior - he helped them finish 8th last season and played in the first team most of the games. His rating in the league matches was slightly above 7.00, so I feel he’s in the right place at the moment and first team football will help his development a lot. Bence Kertesz continues in AFC - KeukenKampioen Divisie suits his ability and he put in a fair amount of good games (although could be blamed for inconsistency). Ruben Sergio will continue his loan career in SK Lommel, although his development is stalled and I don’t expect him to become good enough to stay in Ajax beyond 2034. Bulgarian goalkeeper Metodi Borisov joined VVV Venlo for a season. The decisive factor here was their promise of first team football. Young midfielder Csaba Urban joined his native Hungarian club Ferencvaros for a season. Our second goalkeeper Calvin Francis went on loan to FC Volendam for a season - a move that leaves us a little short in the goalkeeping department, but hopefully youngsters will cover if needed. The Eredivisie transfer window was more active than usual and when dust had settled in September, it turned out that Vitesse invested the most into their squad. It wasn’t surprising, because they are rich and need to bolster their ranks, preparing for the Champions League season, but I also noticed that they signed actually good players - young and talented ones (under 25) with good personality, ability and potential. That team might turn out to be a major challenge in the next couple of years. Contracts First news from the office concerned John Meeuwis - our first team striker signed a new deal until 2038 and his £22,000 p/w salary is not really too much for his ability. Peter Misidjan and Richard Svec also signed contract extensions and will remain in the club until 2038 and 2037 respectively. Staff As always, few changes in staff are expected and few were surprising. Our long-serving scout Franz-Josef Reckels decided to finally retire this Summer (he’s 73 years old!). I thought if we needed to replace him or not, but Bayern lured away Tobias Süveges and our scouting department looked already too thin, so I posted an advert and flocks of decent candidates sent their resumes to Amsterdam. None of the candidates seemed good enough though, but I noticed a young and smart guy in Vitesse backroom staff and signed him from our rivals - Jan Erik Lowsma is just 35 years old, but already has a keen eye on the talent. I also made some changes in the medical department - Kevin Dijk was promoted to head sport scientist and I signed unemployed Tom Koopmans to his previous position. Ajax favourite Donny van de Beek decided to hang up his boots after this season and I invited him back to Amsterdam to work with our U-18 team as a coach. He’s not too good in the role at the moment, but he’ll start to get his licences and I expect him to improve. It’s always nice to see former players in the ranks of the coaching staff. International Football It was a summer without major tournaments, but Holland managed to win the Nations League after beating England in the final. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted July 10 Author Share Posted July 10 Squad Update 2033 Not a lot of changes in this Summer, so we’ll continue with a very similar team that we had in our last campaign. Goalkeepers Actually, a goalkeeper. In singular. We sent Calvin Francis away on loan, so Riswan Sinaga is our only first team goalkeeper. Fingers crossed that he wouldn’t pick up any major injuries, but in minor games I wonder if young Niciano Kuijsten from our U-18 team could claim his debut. Defenders Major change already in the last season was my decision to move Can Tas from defence to midfield. That will open up opportunities for other players in our central defence. We have a leader in Olivier Aertssen (who starts the season with a broken foot he suffered in a pre-season friendly match), so Rik Vos will definitely step up and hope for more game time in coming weeks - a tall player, albeit technically not as good as Aertssen. And the one to watch is Frank Goossens - a very talented 17 years old centre-back who is equally comfortable with the ball. He’s the future of our defence and can probably play more minutes than he expected in Aertssen’s absence. Prince Aning and Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi are our first choice full-backs, with Giorgio Jongebloet and Richard Svec providing cover and minutes from the bench. Midfield This is one area of the pitch where we shook things up. Claidel Muringen and Jaap Prinsen are gone. We have a true leader in Kenneth Taylor and I plan to play Can Tas next to him as a BBMs and/or BWM when the situation requires it. Can Tas has an excellent work rate, very good tackling and he’s someone to lead the team when needed. A bit short for a centre-back, as previous seasons proved, but could become a good midfielder. Next to him we have Joel van de Sande - another new face who suits to play as a BBMs with his work rate and teamwork. He spent his last season on loan at Almere City and got plenty of game time at Eredivisie level. He brings aggression to the team (that we generally lack) but perhaps more than it is always wise - he was sent off twice in his season at Almere, so channelling his aggression right could be a challenge and I’m prepared to see him inevitably picking up a few cards in this season. Attacking Midfield No changes here. Amourricho van Axel Dongen has returned from his long cruciate ligament injury and I can alternate between him as IWs and Ja-Ryong Kim as Ws on our left flank. Quick and agile Quenten Hose and Anass Sarpong will play on the right wing with IWa instructions. Cultured midfielder Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson is our first choice in AMCa position (he’s nearing 100 international appearances with Iceland) while Peter Misidjan and Mohamed Tahiri compete for game time in that position. Tahiri can drop to deeper midfield and play as BBMs, too, but he lacks the work rate and creativity that Can Tas possesses. Strikers John Meeuwis continues to develop well and I wonder why he hasn’t caught the attention of bigger teams yet. He can play as a CFa or PFa in our formation. Koen Verlijsdonk is our second choice, but his contract will run out next Summer and he’s nearing his potential. With the amount of talent we have coming up through youth ranks he might not find a place in our squad in the future - jury’s still out on him. And the first representative of said future is Sladan Krunic - young Serbian striker who impressed in our pre-season friendlies and hopes to get his debut for the club soon enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 August 2033 Fixtures and Results Our fixture list at the start of the season is rather tricky - at least a lot more challenging than in previous couple of seasons. We will play Vitesse twice (once in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and then in the league) and will travel to Utrecht and Groningen for Eredivisie games. I would be really happy if we come through these games unscathed. We started our season with a good 3:0 win over Vitesse in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final. The game itself looked quite balanced in the first half, but we were much more clinical with our chances and went to half-time with a 2:0 lead - Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson scored twice before the break. And when Quenten Hose added our third goal soon after the second half restarted, it was game over. Very confident win against probably the strongest team in the league. FC Utrecht proved to be an even bigger test than I anticipated and we left Galgenwaard with a 0:2 defeat. Things were OK in the first 30 minutes - John Meeuwis excelled in the CFa role and created two good chances for Ja-Ryong Kim and Quenten Hose, but our wingers failed to finish off their opportunities. Then FC Utrecht took the lead after their striker Jari van de Kerhof saw his attempt being blocked, but the loose ball fell to Daniel Prieto who had pretty much an open goal in front of him. Two minutes later their winger Nico Serrano hit the post, so it’s fair to say that momentum switched to the FC Utrecht’s side in the last ten minutes after the goal. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take control of the game in the second half, even after their midfielder Alex Cardos was sent off - he brought down John Meeuwis with a foul as the last man and we had more than 20 minutes to find an equaliser, but instead we took more risks in attack and eventually FC Utrecht scored their second goal late in the game. Very poor display from us 11 vs. 10 - expected much better from the squad. We couldn’t find the right gear and determination and ultimately didn’t deserve to win. We then hosted Vitesse again at Johan Cruijff Arena in a short time. For the second time in consecutive games we were helped by our opponents’ aggressiveness - Vitesse’s midfielder Luca Bleick was sent off already in 23’ for a two-footed lunge on Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and after that we controlled the game, using our advantage much better than we did against FC Utrecht. Quenten Hose gave us the lead in the first half, but the second goal kept itself waiting - both Hose and Anass Sarpong hit the woodwork before Meeuwis eventually secured all three points with his late goal. FC Groningen proved to be tough opponents at Euroborg. After a quiet first half I made small tactical tweaks at half-time - increased tempo a little bit and switched John Meeuwis to a PFa and we played better in the second half, creating some half-chances (especially in the final ten minutes). Meeuwis found himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper around the 87' mark and should have won it for us, but his attempt went wide and it remained goalless. Not a disaster. I anticipated tough games from those away matches, but I felt we should have snatched it 1:0 when comparing goalscoring moments and xG of both teams. Kudos for Rik Vos in our defence though, who battled with Groningen’s tall target man Emanuel Emegha for the full match and came out the best in that particular duel, earning himself the player of the match award. So, in conclusion, a little bit of a rough start for us in the league, but hopefully it will get better. Tactics and Players Tactically I’ve changed our pressing frequency to a little lower this season and we’ll see how it works out. On the pitch it seems that our striker needs to work less and has less fatigue as a result. In certain situations it also looks that our lines are more compact and players move out of position less, so we don’t leave too many gaps between our lines and against stronger teams our defence looks more solid as a result. On the other hand it’s possible that against smaller teams it’s more effective to press higher and win the ball back faster. That’s something I’ll probably experiment with for a little in the next few months. We also have two interesting dilemmas in attack. The first one is left wing - I have two almost equal players there in Ja-Ryong Kim and Amourricho van Axel Dongen who play as Ws and IWs respectively. It’s a chance to alternate if one doesn’t work out, but it’s also a competition between two players and in August Kim showed good form and secured a pole position for the starting line-up place in my selection. The second choice is the role of John Meeuwis - I can alternate between CFa and PFa. He has the ability to play as a complete forward, but it makes him drop deeper and eventually we lack the spearhead in our attack as a result, although his through balls to wingers can be of killer quality. As an alternative he can be a PFa and play in a more direct way, facing towards goal. This could be more effective if we don’t have enough space between the opponent's lines to move into and need to find passes behind the line instead. Player performances have been fairly inconsistent in August and we’ve struggled with injuries, too. I felt that we missed Olivier Aertssen’s leadership against FC Utrecht - he is sidelined for at least until November. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi, Mohamed Tahiri and Rik Vos struggled with minor injuries and all that has affected our squad selection, so not the smoothest start for us as far as player fitness is concerned. Player of the Month: Rik Vos - replaced Olivier Aertssen in central defence really well and was our player of the match against FC Groningen Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. Vitesse Arnhem - good finish from the Icelander to give us the lead in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final Eredivisie Slow start for us this season, but none of the favourites are flawless and the table looks like a real mess. Vitesse haven’t met their favourite’s status well either and FC Emmen find themselves at the top of the table. Still early stages, though, so everything might change. Champions League We were drawn into Group F with Inter Milan, AS Monaco and Mouscron. Boring draw, because we were in the same group with Monaco in the last season and played Inter in the first knockout round. Vitesse reached the group stage, too, and found themselves in group C with Juventus, Lyon Olympique and Celtic Glasgow. I have to say it’s a favourable draw for them - they’re able to beat Celtic, I believe, and might offer a decent fight against Lyon. So if luck is on their side they might even get through from there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted July 18 Author Share Posted July 18 September 2033 Fixtures and Results Our fixture list continues to be difficult in September. Both the Topper Derby and Klassieker Derby in one month, plus two Champions League games. Almer City at home looks like the only easy game (on paper). The Topper derby was an even battle at first half, but Ja-Ryong Kim gave us the lead with a fine header from a penalty spot - a truly excellent header that did beat the goalkeeper and we had the edge at half-time. Kenneth Taylor doubled our lead from a penalty and we felt quite confident for a while, but PSV turned their approach to more attacking one and found a goal in 81’ to put us under pressure. The risk didn’t pay off though, and we scored two more goals in injury time to make it 4:1. A very good final score, but things looked much more unsure for a while in the final period. Our Champions League campaign started with a home game against Mouscron and as I anticipated, our opponents came against us with a much too defensive approach. We controlled the possession in the first half and took the lead from a corner, but struggled to get our shots on target. Things got better in the second half - Quenten Hose doubled our lead with a lovely chip and Meeuwis quickly made it 3:0. We lost some rhythm after substitutions and Mouscron didn’t have anything to lose, so they started to find opportunities and got one goal in 73’, but our win wasn’t in danger. Solid start in the group stage. The Almere City match looked a little bit easier, so it was the first one where I rotated our starting line-up a little. Giorgio Jongebloet started as right-back and Peter Misidjan in the middle of our attacking midfield. Quenten Hose missed a handful of half-chances throughout the match, but we took the lead from a penalty in the first half and just a couple of minutes later Ja-Ryong Kim found Misidjan with a cut-back pass and it was 2:0. Almere’s left-back picked up his second yellow card before the half-time whistle and the second half was very easy for us, playing again 11 vs. 10 for the full 45 minutes. No third goal, but solid result nonetheless and I can be happy with our clean sheet - we haven’t got too many of those this season. Feyenoord at De Kuip looked like a tough challenge and that’s why we started with a balanced mentality. And that was, in turn, the reason why the first half looked really careful and closed from both teams. Quenten Hose had to come off with an injury just after a few minutes after restart and van Axel Dongen went on, to his familiar AMR IWa position and it was his diagonal ball that evaded centre-back’s head and reached John Meeuwis in 73’ - our striker took the ball on his feet and finished with a placed shot. Feyenoord needed to take risks to find an equaliser and that led to some promising counter-attacks from us, so the final 15 minutes looked more attacking than the rest of the match, but Feyenoord couldn’t break our defence and it remained 1:0. A very valuable win from away derby, although a bit less entertaining than anticipated by spectators. I continued with the same balanced 4-2-3-1 in Monaco, but we were trailing already after six minutes - Monaco winger Robert Karamanovic was unmarked at the far post and headed it in. There were no reasons to panic just yet and in the first half Hlynsson found Meeuwis twice with his well-measured through balls and our striker finished his chances well, so we were leading 2:1 before Karamanovic headed in another uncontested header right before the half-time whistle. Serious questions about Jermoumi’s marking ability as a right-back. The second half didn’t offer more goals, although Meeuwis blew his chance for a hat-trick (actually the best opportunity of the match). Monaco had more shots in the game, but our moments were clearly better and eventually xG stats for both teams looked fairly similar. The final result 2:2 left me with mixed feelings - I know we had the lead and our game plan worked to create good chances, but I know that there isn’t much of a difference in quality between two teams, AS Monaco were slight favourites at home and to return from away match with a draw isn’t that bad, considering how the group might play out. Tactics and Players I didn’t feel we needed much to change at home, so our positive 4-2-3-1 formation served us well in the first three matches. It’s still evident that AI teams come to Johan Cruijff Arena with too defensive mentality - PSV only looked dangerous (and scored a goal) after they were already 2:0 down and needed to open up their game more. For us a small concern is that we don’t seem to be able to limit the opposition chances once they get more attacking. In the Klassieker derby a balanced mentality served us well (although the breakthrough came after clear defensive error and overall we were criticised for less than entertaining display). I have to say that a balanced vs. balanced derby looks incredibly boring to watch. Where margins are small, set pieces might become incredibly important and we have dedicated some extra sessions to preparing for corners and free kicks. We scored one against Mouscron (but conceded one in the same game), but generally I’m frustrated with our lack of threat from corners even if we get a decent amount of them in the match. Rik Vos is currently our tallest player with the best aerial ability, but his heading accuracy is not high enough to win headers in the opponent’s box and direct them towards the goal. I’ve yet to see a decent centre-back who could score 5-10 goals in a season from set pieces. Player form has been a little bit inconsistent, but that seems to be connected to game time and/or opponents. Our defensive line has largely remained the same (Jermoumi-Vos-Rajkovic-Aning) in September and that has helped to build good communication and understanding, so their performances have been good. Kenneth Taylor is very reliable in the middle and Can Tas has tried to get himself to form next to him, but our attacking midfielders and striker are very inconsistent. There have been games where Ja-Ryong Kim finds himself isolated on the left flank and his crosses don’t seem to find targets in the box. Quenten Hose is very quick and agile on the right, but tends to waste goal scoring chances and I’m still not sure whether CFa or PFa is the right position for John Meeuwis in attack, so I switch between two of those in the games. Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - had an off night against Almere City, but scored four goals in five matches and his performances were the key in the last two important games. Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. Mouscron - no goals from outside of the box this month, but Hose takes the award with a technically excellent chip over the goalkeeper Eredivisie Good results in September have helped us into the top three. FC Utrecht and Heracles Almelo (!) are still undefeated, but the table looks pretty tight with just a few points between teams, so it’s still early stages. Surprising to see FC Twente and sc Heerenveen in the relegation zone. Vitesse also had a slow start, but I expect them to pick up their pace early enough. Champions League Two games played and we have four points, so things are going as planned. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 October 2033 Fixtures and Results Five games in October (+ international window). Inter at Giuseppe Meazza is a big test, but Eredivisie fixture list is a bit easier than it was in August or September and we’re expected to win all of our league games. The first win at De Grolsch Veste was a routine affair. Our opponents had a terrible start to their season and are still looking for their first win of the campaign. We took the lead from a penalty in the first half and John Meeuwis doubled it six minutes later and FC Twente didn’t seem to have an answer. We put in a solid first half performance, but it was a rather dull game after the break - no real chances in the second half. We didn’t put FC Twente under real pressure, but we didn’t need to. Next opponents sc Heerenveen didn’t look much better either - a team that has not improved in the Summer transfer window, plays with a rather cautious tactics and have managed to score just one goal from the first seven games. We had a poor first half against them - no real chances to score until in the 45’ John Meeuwis found a way through and gave us the lead. The second half offered a little bit more opportunities, but no goals - we controlled the game from start to finish, but our narrow lead left it nervous until the end. sc Heerenveen didn’t attack in numbers and they failed to create proper chances against us, but 1:0 was a bit underwhelming for home fans. Inter were as tough as anticipated. They controlled the first 30’ and Gabriel Misehouy had a couple of really good chances before I realised that he’s playing as MEZa and is certainly bound to find gaps and spaces behind our defence, so I reacted by switching our BBMs (Mohamed Tahiri) to CMd and this change stopped our leak. In fact, we started to find chances of our own - John Meeuwis’ attempt from near post was tipped away by Meslier and Can Tas had an open header from a corner from point blank range, but sent it wide. In 42’ Inter finally took the lead from a corner and in the second half Jermoumi gave away an unnecessary penalty, leaving us trailing 0:2. Meeuwis scored to give us hope, but even though we were well in the game to find an equaliser, it remained 1:2 - no shame in that defeat, because we created moments. Perhaps on another day it could have been a different result, but getting something from Giuseppe Meazza wasn’t on the cards from the beginning and it was a much better performance than the one we showed in the last season in the same circumstances. Back to Eredivisie and we hosted Excelsior - again much easier opponents on paper. Perhaps because it was a home game, we totally controlled proceedings in the first half and didn’t allow them to take a single attempt. Our own finishing at the same time was below par and we ultimately had to rely on a penalty. With Kenneth Taylor injured, it was Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson who took the penalty and did well to finish it off. The second half offered less good goal scoring opportunities, but we did double our lead - Vos headed in from a corner - and did well in that regard, because we carelessly allowed Excelsior to score in injury time. Lack of concentration there, but Vos' goal guaranteed that we didn’t lose any points because of that. And after three good wins in the lead, we wrapped up October with a goalless draw against ADO Den Haag, who managed to shut us down completely. A couple of half-chances to John Meeuwis and a header from Rajkovic that glanced the crossbar were as close as we got to goal. Minor tweaks that I tried in attacking instructions didn’t make any difference and we dropped two relatively cheap points. Tactics and Players We’re expecting Olivier Aertssen back in full training any day now. Broken foot that he suffered in a pre-season friendly has taken three months to recover. Rik Vos has covered alongside Ognjen Rajkovic and can be proud of his form - one of the best performers in the squad so far, scored two goals in those three months and has been named to Eredivisie team of the week four times. But in October another injury struck - Kenneth Taylor left training with a torn hamstring right before our trip to Milan and he’ll be out until January. Another leader gone means I need to shift things in midfield - Can Tas moves to DLPd position to cover for Taylor and Mohamed Tahiri (who hoped for more starts as AMCa) will drop back to midfield and share game time with Joel van de Sande as BBMs. We lose some of the work rate and defensive capabilities in that position, but I see no other option. From the tactical side of things, that halts my experiment to try different roles for our BBMs midfielder. Against Inter we were successful in turning it to CMd (against big teams in away games or when holding the lead it might be helpful in the future as well), but Can Tas was capable of playing as BWMs or BWMd, but equally adept with ball at his feet, so BBMs wasn’t a bad choice either. Both van de Sande and Tahiri have slightly lower work rate, but they lack Can Tas’ aggression and tackling ability, so there’s little point for them to chase opposition players around without actually taking the ball away from them. Another thing that’s got clear with September and October games is that John Meeuwis is better as PFa in our formation - CFa is good on paper and leads to couple of great through balls - but he’s leading the line much better as PFa and is now in a consistent scoring streak, so I was not going to fix what was broken, but then he had an 6.4 game against ADO. It’s a challenge to find consistency and prevent games like that. Player of the Month: Prince Aning - featured in four games and one of the only consistent players in the team who always played out his level, even though he didn’t exactly shine in any of those. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. sc Heerenveen - six goals to choose from, but two penalties amongst them and lack of really excellent strikes, so importance counts and Meeuwis’ placed shot against sc Heerenveen that proved to be the winner gets the nod Eredivisie We’re behind AZ Alkmaar with a game in hand and FC Utrecht breathing down our neck. We could have gained some points in the table, but a poor draw against ADO Den Haag held us back. At the bottom there’s sc Heerenveen - the only team yet to find their first win. I was almost sure that if Heerenveen and FC Twente aren’t able to turn things around in October we’ll see the first managers lose their jobs, but instead it was Heracles Almelo board who lost its patience and sacked Colin Balkestein. Heracles is sitting in 11th place while predicted 8th in pre-season billings and you might say that they’re generally in mid-table where they belong, but after a good start when they were undefeated in August and September they failed to record a single win in their last seven Eredivisie games and that’s what cost Balkestein his job. Champions League Three games played - Inter is almost certainly winning the group. We are battling with AS Monaco for second place. Our match in Amsterdam against them will be the key fixture, unless Mouscron surprises somebody in the second round of games. Vitesse have shown their strength in their group - they defeated both Celtic and Lyon Olympique and have six points after three games - not a bad start for them. 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Draakon Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 November 2033 Fixtures and Results Five games in November - our focus is again mainly on the Champions League, but we also have a pretty difficult Noord-Hollandse derby coming up against in-form AZ Alkmaar I was delighted with our 1:0 home win over Inter. It was a difficult match-up, but we went to the game with a positive mentality and it paid off. After an evenly balanced first half where we looked well in the game, but failed to score, it was Quenten Hose who got through in 63’ and finished with an audacious chip over the goalkeeper. Inter looked a little bit impatient in attack - they had attempts, but lacked proper chances and our defence held firm to secure a valuable three points to the table and record our first win over Inter in several seasons. That’s a great sign for us! The 4:0 win over Sparta Rotterdam was I guess the first match of the season that we truly dominated. Quenten Hose sent us off with a flyer and John Meeuwis scored twice in the first half. Our attack was free-flowing, Sparta's game plan was in shambles and at half-time it was 3:0, but Sparta had just one attempt from distance while our shooting was 16/9 already in the first half. We could play the second half without any pressure - wasted some chances as well, but Quenten Hose doubled his tally by nodding the ball into the empty net from close range and making it four. In the final minutes we gave Sparta a couple of moments, too, but Riswan Sinaga stepped up and took away Patrick Ndlovu’s one-on-one situation and secured a clean sheet for himself. Excellent performance from all of the players and I was delighted with the result. The first game where we had xG over 3.00 and average rating of 7.70. We continued in the same fashion against FC Emmen - the team who had a good start to the season and was leading the table at the end of August, but then reality hit and Autumn weeks brought them only defeats and draws. They were no match for us - John Meeuwis showed what kind of goalscorer he can be, with every single through ball that found its way to him landed in the goal. It was 4:0 in the first half and even though Ognjen Rajkovic’s mistake gave FC Emmen a consolation goal in the second half, Meeuwis wrapped it up with his fifth of the evening in 84’. I’ve rarely ever seen more clinical goalscoring by one striker in one game. Just like that he brought his goals tally in this season to 15, including 11 in 12 league games. Absolutely fantastic display. Our streak went on with a good 3:1 win over AS Monaco in Amsterdam. With that match I celebrated my 600th game in football management. The first half wasn’t the most exciting football on display and the worrying moment was in 15’ when Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson had to come off with an injury after a strong tackle from a defender. The second half was much better - Rik Vos headed in from a corner and we got a good control over the game. Some half chances in the second half led to goals from van Axel Dongen and Sarpong before Monaco’s Robert Karavanovic headed in a consolation goal for our opponents - exactly in the same fashion as he scored a brace against us in Monaco. Generally a very good second half performance and I was happy with what I saw. But our almost perfect month finished with a less than perfect 1:1 draw against AZ Alkmaar. Even though our opponents were in second place in the table I felt that our home advantage should have been enough for us to secure all three points, but instead we struggled to create chances against their well organised defence. Both teams scored from a corner and our first half goal was neutralised by AZ’s answer in 70’. Disappointing performance - perhaps something should have been done tactically, because our full-backs Aning and Jongebloet failed to have an effect on our attack, and our average rating was just 6.70 with 0.94 xG, so clearly we weren’t good enough. That draw didn’t have too much of an effect on our standings in the table, though. Tactics and Players Everything seemed to work out well tactically and against smaller teams we pressed with higher intensity and put them under pressure, and that, in turn resulted in more goals, until our attack got stuck against AZ Alkmaar. On the other hand we missed both Kenneth Taylor and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson in this Noord-Hollandse derby because of injuries and they’re two important creative players in our midfield, so perhaps that contributed to our lack of chances. Taylor will be out for the better part of December. Hlynsson sprained his ankle in the match with AS Monaco and has to be sidelined for around 3-4 weeks. Individually it has been a wonderful month for John Meeuwis who has reached 11 league goals (15 in all competitions) and it’s just November. It might turn out to be a breakthrough season for him and I’m delighted with his goalscoring form. There were more individual accolades, as Amourricho van Axel Dongen made his 350th appearance for Ajax in the match against Inter and Quenten Hose reached his 100th league game for Ajax. Meanwhile, the news item about the best talent producing clubs in the European football scene confirmed that we’re still at the top of that table, with 83 players developed in the top five leagues. Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - seven goals in five games brought him to lead the Eredivisie goal scoring table. Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. Inter Milan - really important finish from the winger to lob it over the goalkeeper Eredivisie We’re level with AZ Alkmaar, but have two games to play. Two defeats for FC Utrecht in November dropped them down a little and Vitesse have won just two of their last five games. At the bottom we see that sc Heerenveen have picked up their first win of the season and I firmly believe that under new management Heerenveen and FC Twente will climb up in the table. At the same time NEC Nijmegen and Almere City show poor form and are moving downwards quickly. Anthony Knockaert was finally sacked by sc Heerenveen after match day 11 - still without a win and now under serious threat to get stuck into relegation places. Similarly Edwin de Graaf was sacked by FC Twente - for clubs that stature being in the relegation zone is just not good enough, and under de Graaf there was no evidence to suggest that things were improving. Danish manager Bo Henriksen was also sacked from PSV Eindhoven in November - they’ve dropped to mid-table mediocrity and that isn’t fit for the club that’s considered as one of the big three in Holland. Heracles Almelo lured away Jorg Wijdenbosch from Almere City to take charge of the club, meanwhile sc Heerenveen had more faith in Colin Balkestein than Heracles had and they hired him to replace Knockaert. Champions League We’ve qualified to the knockout stages and can go to the last match without any pressure. Vitesse suffered two 0:1 defeats in November and they’re currently third in their group, but everything’s possible ahead of the last match day. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 5 Author Share Posted August 5 December 2033 Fixtures and Results Seven games in December - schedule is packed, but opponents in Eredivisie are rather easy and we should win all of the league games, at least that’s what is expected from the team. Because of our Champions League standings we can travel to Mouscron without any pressure and rotate the team in this one. We will also start our KNVB Beker journey against Eredivisie team NEC Nijmegen - so we’ll meet them twice in one month. Newly-promoted NEC Nijmegen lost their manager Torsten Frings in November when he decided to join La Liga side Celta Vigo. Our game against them was the first one under Kokou Ouro - a regen manager who has short experience with FC Den Bosch and is now set to make his Eredivisie debut with NEC. Challenge is real for him, because NEC is currently 14th and without a win in their last seven league games (although there are some pretty solid draws in those games). And reality hit hard, because we dominated the first half, scored two quick goals and when John Meeuwis added our third after our attacking players played the ‘pants off’ from defenders, I saw resignation in the NEC players’ faces. But their attacking midfielder headed against the post right before the half-time whistle and they probably took heart of that, because in 48’ they found a goal. That didn’t change the result, though, and we had a comfortable 3:1 win. I was happy with the performance even though I would have preferred a clean sheet. We continued in a very similar fashion in the away match against Mouscron - the game didn’t matter much in terms of standings, but at half-time we had already a solid 3:1 lead - we conceded two big chances ourselves (one of those converted to Mouscron goal), but were extremely clinical ourselves. I recognised the young and inexperienced left-back as the weak link in Mouscron defence and indeed Quenten Hose ran him to the ground in the first half and scored twice before half-time. John Meeuwis added our fourth goal of the game after defenders missed a long clearance from Riswan Sinaga and it finished with an emphatic 4:1 win even though our shooting was just 9/6. I’d be happy to see such a clinical finishing in every match. Three days forward and we were visiting Cambuur. That match was a whole different story, because our opponent was a small team and they were well aware of that. So, to survive in Eredivisie against big clubs their manager had adopted a 5-3-2 DM WB formation, with basically eight players defending deep. It was incredibly difficult to find open spaces and even when we did we failed to get our shots on target. John Meeuwis finally found a goal on 70’ that proved to be a winner, but on another day SC Cambuur’s bus parking tactics might have snatched a point from us. We met NEC Nijmegen again in two weeks. This time in the KNVB Beker 2nd round and at Goffertstadion. After a very one-sided first half (where we sadly scored just once), we conceded from a corner on 59’, but reacted well and Quenten Hose restored our lead just three minutes later. A win is a win and I used the opportunity to share game time, but the overall performance lacked a bit after the break. It was again much better in the away game against Excelsior. The important news was that we had Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson back after he recovered from his injury. Hlynsson started this game and instantly made a difference with his set piece delivery - his free kick set up Quenten Hose for our first goal and Can Tas headed in Hlynsson’s corner in the second half. John Meeuwis also scored a brace and we finished with a resounding 4:0 win with great performances from all the players. Heracles couldn’t withstand our quality at Johan Cruijff Arena either. The first half finished goalless, but we had 15 attempts and had some really good opportunities, so it was a surprise we couldn’t find a goal. But Heracles’ midfielder Elayis Tavsan received his second yellow card on 47’ and the second half was a complete destruction after that. We held them under constant pressure for the whole match and scored four goals (including the first senior goal for young striker Sladan Krunic). Our attempts were 30/16 with 10 goal scoring chances and no shot attempts from Heracles. The game couldn’t finish soon enough for our opponents. We managed to complete our perfect month with a 1:0 away win over Fortuna Sittard, although the performance itself wasn’t so great. We took the lead early in the game - Rik Vos headed in from a free kick to give us a good start, but after that we struggled to create chances and missed the target with our attempts, although defence was still formidable. Fortuna started to take more risks in the final ten minutes and that opened gaps in their defence, but we couldn’t score another goal and Vos’ header proved to be the winner. Tactics and Players Tactically we’ve retained our positive 4-2-3-1 formation against smaller Eredivisie teams, but midfield problems and fatigue meant that we had to use Mohamed Tahiri as DLPd once (and he did fairly well in that role). Otherwise it’s pretty much our usual rotation (and we’ve managed to rotate a fair share because of the schedule and also because we’ve taken a decent lead early in the games. In attack John Meeuwis has scored 22 goals already at Christmas and as soon as he hit 20, the interest from big clubs spiked up ahead of the January transfer window. Bayern is interested in him, also PSG, but hopefully we can keep him in Amsterdam until the end of the season. Quenten Hose has 12 goals so far, but the third best goal scorer is way behind them, so we’ve been reliant on two attacking players to find the net and that’s a bit worrying. At least our young striker Sladan Krunic scored his first ever goal for Ajax and hopefully he’ll add a few more in the second half of the season. Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - seven goals in seven games grant the striker this month’s award. Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. SC Cambuur - a fine strike that proved to be the winner, so an important goal as well. AFC Ajax Youth Intake Preview 2034 So, a fine goalkeeper and a centre-back are promised. I could use a goalkeeper if Riswan Sinaga should decide to move on, but I feel we have plenty of talent in the central defence at the moment. A decent winger or midfielder could help a little bit more. Eredivisie It seems that the top five clubs have moved away from the others and after strong results in December we enjoy a seven points lead in the table. I’ve always checked our points total after 17 games and this time it was 42 - above the required 40 points mark. FC Twente and sc Heerenveen continue to struggle in the relegation zone and change of managers hasn’t helped them much. Champions League We finished second in the group (although for a short while it looked like we might snatch first place while Inter struggled with AS Monaco in the final round). We’re up against Tottenham in the first knockout round. Vitesse was really unlucky to finish 4th in their group despite having six points - narrow 0:1 defeats in their last games cost them dearly and Eredivisie didn’t collect the coefficient points we need to make progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 8 Author Share Posted August 8 January 2034 Fixtures and Results Four games in January. Fortuna (back to back games against them in the league) and SC Telstar at home should be easy, but Vitesse and AZ Alkmaar away pose themselves as real tests for us. We did beat Fortuna at home 2:1 - took the lead late in the first half, then John Meeuwis doubled it with a chip on 60’ but two minutes later we were stunned by a free kick from Fortuna that landed in our top corner. We controlled the game from start to finish and their goal took us a little bit by surprise. Perhaps we should have scored more, but Fortuna defended well enough (like they did at home in December) and managed to block roughly half our attempts, so our number of decent chances didn’t exactly convert to goals. But I was delighted to see Kenneth Taylor in action again after his three months long injury and for the first time this season we were at full strength. The KNVB Beker match against SC Telstar, who are near the bottom of KeukenKampioen Divisie offered us a chance to rotate and rest key players ahead of more difficult games, but that rotation disrupted our rhythm way more than I expected to see. We conceded two big chances in the first half and Riswan Sinaga made some fine saves to keep Telstar at bay, but when their striker Leo Girard finally headed it in on 26’ it was no less than they deserved. We made just such poor decisions in attack and our defence was all over the place that I couldn’t recognise our team. I made changes at half-time - set tempo to standard and switched Peter Misidjan (who played as our striker in this match) as CFa and that helped to bring order into chaos - Anass Sarpong equalised with a fine strike and although Misidjan missed two big chances, our substitute striker Koen Verlijsdonk brought it home with a fine strike on 87’ - much better display in the second half and eventually got through with a 2:1 win. We then had two big away games back to back - first Vitesse, who lost their manager John van den Brom right before this game, so I expected them to be slightly poorer tactically. First eleven was back, but I chose to start with a balanced mentality and tuned down our pressing intensity a little as well. The first half was a careful start, where John Meeuwis had the only chance of the period before the half-time whistle, but I felt that we gave away a little too many fouls and set pieces and Vitesse managed to win headers in our box. That was a threat even though it didn’t create exactly chances. We took the lead from a corner on 54’ - Rik Vos directed his header down to the feet of Mohamed Tahiri, who skewed it into the back corner - well done. We held onto that lead and weren’t under real pressure from Vitesse attack, but eventually it all fell apart in the final minutes - Vitesse’s corner on 90’ came to the far post and their tall midfielder Koena Qwabe won a header against Vos to equalise it in the last minute. And to make things worse, he received a through ball two minutes later to score the injury time winner in front of the ecstatic GelreDome. What a sucker punch. I felt that we had played a good game and made tactically sound decisions to get at least a draw, but came away with nothing. A little bit fragile after that defeat we went to Alkmaar to play the Noord-Hollandse derby. Almost the same starting eleven and the same approach we had in Arnhem - balanced mentality with normal pressing. For some reason AZ were caught completely off-guard by that and we got two early chances (that we unfortunately missed) before AZ showed some threat in attack - their winger Manfred Ugalde hit the post. Quenten Hose gave us the lead on 32’ after some agile footwork and fine strike beat the goalkeeper and that was too much for Ugalde - frustration blew over and his two-footed tackle on Taylor earned him a straight red card. We responded by scoring two more goals in the first half and with a 3:0 half-time lead and playing against ten men it was fairly easy second half for us - Rik Vos headed in from a free kick to make it four, but AZ concentrated on damage limitation and although we created a lot of chances, some last moment blocks and brave defending kept the score line from getting worse than it was. Nevertheless, a very convincing win for us and exactly the reaction I wanted to see after the Vitesse defeat. Tactics and Players Tactically the main question was whether our approach in the difficult away games (balanced mentality + less pressing) works against stronger opponents and over two games I’d say it did. Yes, the result slipped away from us in Arnhem, but that’s football and over ninety minutes we actually played well enough. I also instructed players to deliver low crosses against tall AZ defenders and this tweak also worked out excellently, as Ja-Ryong Kim set up Misidjan for a simple tap-in with his cross from our left wing. The second test was trying out Peter Misidjan as a CFa in attack - he played as a striker for 75 minutes against SC Telstar (and wasted two big chances, so not really convincing), but scored against AZ and his pass selections and link-up play looked good enough. The most important thing is that all of the players are healthy in January and we had good selection options for all games. Three wins from four matches isn’t that bad either and hopefully we can avoid major injuries in the second half of the season - we had enough problems already in Autumn. Few individual accolades from January. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi made his 300th appearance for Ajax in the Fortuna game and young left winger Jort van Leeuwen made his debut for the club against SC Telstar Player of the Month: Quenten Hose - played in three games in January, had an average rating of 7.70, scored two goals and added one assist. Goal of the Month: Anass Sarpong vs. SC Telstar - a fine strike from the winger to score an equaliser in a match where we desperately needed it Transfer Window The main question for the Winter transfer window was whether we could hold onto our key players. It looked like that for three weeks. My days were filled with optimistic transfer offers for quite ridiculous money and even Vitesse and PSV imagined that they could poach our talented young players for just a couple of million. But then Bayern came and offered a decent fee for John Meeuwis and right away I knew that I couldn't keep him at Ajax any more. The face of our 22 years old striker lit up when he talked about that opportunity and I can’t blame him. I negotiated the bid up for £45m and reluctantly allowed him to go. Rik Vos has been our best defender so far this season - he has 18 months left of his contract and he’s also 22 years old, so I have a decent picture of his ability and potential and I was sure all along that he’s outperforming his attributes by some margin, so when a good bid comes in, it might be reasonable to let him leave. I rejected several offers below £5m, but eventually Real Sociedad came with an offer worth £7m and that one I accepted. A fair amount of money for a, well, average defender. That transfer allows more game time to Frank Goossens and with the amount of talented youngsters we have in our U-18 team I don’t need to worry too much. Third player to leave was Koen Verlijsdonk - his contract was about to run out in Summer and he finally revealed his unambitious personality, so I had no intention to offer him a new deal. Championship side Rotherham came and asked if they could have him in January and I agreed, even though this move leaves us really thin in attack (hence testing Peter Misidjan in attack in January games). But our U-18 list of strikers is really impressive and I hope to introduce a few of them to first team football this season. The amount of attacking players leaving got me a little bit scared, so eventually I rejected Atletico Madrid’s £30m bid for Quenten Hose on the transfer deadline day. Player’s reluctance to join the Madrid side also helped a little. Some younger players went on loan. Our third right-back Joel Comvalius joined Almere City for six months, hoping to get more Eredivisie football. Young Swedish striker Grzegor Kmiecik went on loan to KeukenKampioen side HHC, along with our U-18 right winger Melih Karaca. And some younger players left the club for good. Unambitious Finnish winger Tomas Koikkalainen was let go and joined FC Eindhoven for free. Kevin Otto’s contract was about to run out, too, and I allowed him to leave for NAC Breda. Hopefully they can restart their careers there, as their potential was not enough to make it in Ajax. Finances The Meeuwis’ transfer brought our bank balance over £1b again - we’re not exactly short of cash, let’s put it that way. Eredivisie We still have a solid six points lead in the table. Both Vitesse and FC Utrecht have dropped out of their European competitions and can focus on Eredivisie, so we have to be prepared for a tough competition from them. Both sc Heerenveen and FC Twente have got some points on the board, but are still in the relegation zone. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 12 Author Share Posted August 12 February 2034 Fixtures and Results February will bring some difficult games - we’re hosting FC Utrecht at Johan Cruijff Arena (that defeat from them in August still stings) and then there’s the Klassieker Derby in the cup quarter final (I probably jinxed it in the press conference when a journalist asked me who do I prefer as opponents in the quarter final and I answered “Feyenoord”) and of course Tottenham in the Champions League. We have to play all those games while adjusting to life without John Meeuwis - with the transfer we lost a player who could have scored possibly 30+ goals this season and those goals might be difficult to compensate for. We took a small revenge over FC Utrecht in a narrow 1:0 win in Amsterdam. A quiet first half showed that our opponents concentrated on defence and they were difficult to break down. Peter Misidjan struggled in attack - he had no shots in over 70 minutes and eventually came off. Kenneth Taylor tried his luck with a free kick from 30 metres and hit the upright, but eventually substitute Sladan Krunic headed home Hose’s cross from our right wing and our second half pressure eventually led to the winning goal. I was happy enough with that, because Utrecht never threatened and our defence looked super solid. Olivier Aertssen and Ognjen Rajkovic showed that Rik Vos might not be missed after all. After a hard-fought win over FC Utrecht, we destroyed arch rivals Feyenoord in front of the home fans 4:0 - I don’t know exactly what was the difference, but everything clicked from the kick-off and Quenten Hose set up Misidjan for a simple tap-in in early minutes. Then Hlynsson curled his attempt from 21 metres into the top corner and before Feyenoord could compose themselves, referee Mark Blaauw awarded a penalty for a push on Misidjan. Kenneth Taylor sent his free kick from 28 metres into the top corner to pile on the misery of Feyenoord fans and that was game over before 30 minutes were played. Four brilliant goals and although we didn’t take too many attempts (just 10/5 shooting) we managed to create four clear cut chances and that was enough. Feyenoord couldn’t pose a real threat to our defence and the only sour note to our victory was Rajkovic’s injury, who came off with a twisted ankle. FC Emmen at Johan Cruijff Arena should have been easy, but it was quite the opposite. We took initiative, as expected, and after Hlynsson hit his one-on-one opportunity to the woodwork, he made amends ten minutes later to score with a low drive. But FC Emmen threatened from a corner and their header touched our crossbar, so it wasn’t a sure win and things definitely changed after Eskild Dall equalised just a few minutes before halt-time. We kept them under pressure and held possession in the first half and that’s why it was a real disappointment to go to the break level. And it got worse in the second half when Olivier Aertssen missed his header and allowed FC Emmen right-back Mustafa Özdemir to score with a simple finish from the far post. It was a frantic second half and we tried to find an equaliser. I saw some nervous faces on the pitch and offered encouragement from the sidelines and finally our substitute Mohamed Tahiri found the net with his first time attempt on 87’. It gave us the confidence that we needed and in injury time Anass Sarpong found Peter Misidjan with a cross - this time our new striker scored with a simple tap in to make it 3:2! But FC Emmen didn’t give up without a fight - a late corner and another header won in our box, and our players watched as it rattled the crossbar before defenders cleared it away. What a match! Dramatic come-back for us sent delighted home fans on their way home. Three days later, however, we couldn’t surprise Tottenham in any way. And to be fair their midfield and attack looked way too strong for us on paper, so despite their disappointing season and 9-10th place in the Premier League standings they gave us little to no chances. Riswan Sinaga’s error when defending a corner allowed their first goal on 8’ and Brazilian striker Edimar added another goal on 24’. I tried to switch things up tactically, switching between a balanced and positive mentality and tempo. Finally unticked WBIB instructions and at least got some attacks that finished with shots in the second half - a few decent ones went on target and could have got us at least one goal, but we couldn’t beat their keeper, so 0:2 it was and although not a catastrophe, it also showed that we’re not better than we are. FC Twente have struggled this season and they were no match for us - we controlled the game from start to finish and Hose’s opener came soon enough. Everything seemed to work against our opponents - their centre-back Sam Beukema scored an own goal and they conceded a penalty on the edge of area that VAR confirmed (but was a schoolboy error from a defender - he never should have made a foul from there) and we were leading 3:0 at half time even though we had missed some pretty good chances. Amourricho van Axel Dongen doubled his tally with a placed shot in the second half and that was it - no answers from Twente (they couldn’t create any real chances against us) and a comfortable win in the game we had over 3.00 xG. This win means we’ve been 70 games undefeated at Johan Cruijff Arena in Eredivisie - that’s more than four seasons worth of home games. I’ve never really thought about that, but I think that’s true, because we seem to struggle in away games if at all in the league. The last match with NEC Nijmegen was another easy win for us - Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson scored a brace in the first half and Anass Sarpong added one goal with a fine strike from the edge of the area. It was 3:0 at half-time, even though Peter Misidjan missed a couple of good chances in the first half. I could make substitutions after the break and give youngsters some minutes of Eredivisie football, so the second half was a more relaxed game and didn’t offer any more goals, but nevertheless, a very comfortable win. Players I’m more-less happy with our defensive efforts in February, especially because Rajkovic’s injury has left him out and 18 years old Frank Goossens has been a new partner to Olivier Aertssen in recent games. That partnership wasn’t really good enough against Tottenham, but did OK in most of the Eredivisie games, so can’t have too many complaints. Quenten Hose, Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and Peter Misidjan have shared the goal scoring load since John Meeuwis left and we have scored plenty of goals. Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored a brace against FC Twente, so he too stepped up this season. Quenten Hose has 15 goals to his name so far and although we don’t have anybody at the top of Eredivisie goal scoring charts, we’re not doing too bad either. And more importantly, youngsters have started to carry more load. I already mentioned Frank Goossens who acted as our first team centre-back in February, but 17 years old striker Sander van Dijk made his debut in the FC Twente match and Sladan Krunic’s winner against FC Utrecht can’t be underestimated either. Player of the Month: Prince Aning - interesting nomination, but he was the only player who was consistently good in all four games he started (including the one against Spurs), even though his rating didn’t exceed 8.0 in any of them. Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. Feyenoord Rotterdam - curled into the top corner from 21 metres. Eredivisie Our closest competitors Vitesse and FC Utrecht dropped some points in February, but Feyenoord appears to have a strong second half of the season and their straight wins have gained them some places in the table. AZ Alkmaar had a terrible January and February wasn’t much better and they’re below the top four by some margin now. Bottom of the table looks really close, but when I consider the quality that Heerenveen and Twente have, it looks like Almere City has a real challenge to themselves to get out of the relegation zone and Sparta have been sinking steadily in the past couple of months. If they continue that kind of form they’ll find themselves in the KeukenKampioen Divisie next season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 18 Author Share Posted August 18 March 2034 Fixtures and Results We have an important cup semi-final against FC Utrecht coming up right at the start of the month, followed by a trip to London and away fixture against Spurs (where I doubt we could overturn our two goal deficit from the first leg). We defeated FC Utrecht 2:0 in a very confident manner, although fans could say it was even a boring win. We controlled possession from start to finish and Utrecht never really threatened our goal. A fairly early goal from Hlynsson in the first half, followed by a header from Ja-Ryong Kim to make it 2:0 and that was it. A textbook win - we didn't need to overexert ourselves, but the result was never really in doubt and all of our four attacking players (Kim, Hose, Misidjan and Hlynsson) had some participation in the goals. I hoped for a good display against Spurs in London and was left with mixed feelings after our 1:3 defeat. We didn’t look too good in the first half - my balanced mentality and player roles didn’t click properly. We conceded two goals in the first twenty minutes and although Peter Misidjan had a perfect chance on 36’ he failed to score and we were 0:2 behind at half-time. I switched back to positive 4-2-3-1 at half-time, but kept more conservative player roles and we started to get more chances, especially after Sladan Krunic game one. Krunic had a wonderful opportunity to score, but his chip just touched the crossbar. Mohamed Tahiri finally finished one of our many promising attacks with a goal, but it was instantly answered by Tottenham - so 1:3 from the away match. We recorded a routine win against Almere City - with mostly rotation players in the starting line-up, we wasted a lot of decent chances in the first half, but Mohamed Tahiri continued his goalscoring form and showed technical ability when his volley gave us the lead in the first half. Tahiri’s assist set up Misidjan for our second goal after the break and that was it, but I felt that we left too many opportunities to waste, especially in the first half. Followed a narrow win over sc Heerenveen - a bit frustrating game where we controlled possession, but failed to get our shots on target. My critical half-time team talk probably worked and Hose gave us the lead soon after restart. The second half was better in terms of creativity, but not much improvement with finishing - we hit the woodwork three times and had to settle for a 1:0 win. No problems defensively, though. In the final game of March Groningen managed to properly test us at Johan Cruijff Arena. They started the match by pressing us high and this disrupted our build-up. And on 15’ they took the lead when Sinaga couldn’t get a proper hand on Ion Goni’s header and it landed in the goal. Six minutes later Ruud Sibon hit the post and our defence looked all over the place. Hose’s equaliser on 33’ allowed us to go to the break level and regroup for the second half. We started this period better and van Axel Dongen gave us the lead with a beautiful free kick. However, our defensive struggles continued and Frank Goossens allowed Sibon to go one-on-one and round our goalkeeper for a simple finish. 2:2 with 54 minutes on the clock. We had creativity, we had ability on the pitch and that brought the result on 75’ - substitute Anass Sarpong won the ball back high in the final third and laid it left to Misidjan for a finish - with 3:2 and game nearing to end, it was almost a win, but Groningen’s tall striker Emanuel Emegha headed home in the last minute for a dramatic equaliser. The last answer belonged to us, though - Misidjan laid a perfect through ball to Anass Sarpong and the winger struck it home in the third minute of injury time. What a drama! Absolute classic and I was delighted that we could send our fans home with a win. Anass Sarpong was a super-sub in this match - he came on after 60 minutes and managed to set up one goal before scoring the injury time winner. Tactics and Players Tactical learning point was obviously the Spurs match. The changes I made in the second half made our game much more attractive and we could actually cause some threat to their defence. Main takeaways from this game: can’t us CFa in those matches. CFa drops too deep and tries to link plays, but there’s not many players to pass the ball forward to. PFa is much more effective, because his on the same line with defence and can always go for runs behind their lines don’t be afraid to use positive mentality in away games, but balance it with different roles; positive mindset creates more chances than balanced, but defensively there’s not much difference between two use different roles to change your tactics more defensive while retaining a positive mentality - left-back to FBs (goes forward less than FBa) and BWMd instead of BBMs. In doing that I moved two supporting players lower to defensive block, but still retained four attacking players (IWa, IWs/Ws, AMCa, PFa) who should be enough to create occasional chances and if we’re clinical enough with our finishing we should be able to surprise bigger teams. Let’s see how these notes help us next season. Since Rik Vos and John Meeuwis left in January we have a little bit smaller squad and I have been able to distribute game time a little bit more. Another fact that helps in this regard is our lead in the table and the fact that we’ve been able to win games even when our starting line-up hasn’t been exactly our strongest eleven. It’s March, the season has been long and bookings have accumulated, so players reach their suspension limits as well - Kenneth Taylor and Ognjen Rajkovic both missed one game after collecting their fifth yellow card. Playing regularly obviously helps training and development - I’m very happy with the progress that Frank Goossens, Joel van de Sande, Anass Sarpong and Sladan Krunic have made in recent weeks. Peter Misidjan has grown into his role as a striker and scored occasional goals as well. He’s not terrible at finishing, so I expect more of him in the future. International window took half of the March in our schedule, but also brought exciting moments for a couple of players. Riswan Sinaga made his first two appearances for Holland and on-loan winger Bence Kertesz was handed a debut for Hungary (and he took that opportunity well by scoring on his debut). Player of the Month: Quenten Hose - difficult choice, because most of the players were poor against Spurs and we rotated a lot in those weeks games. Hose gets the award - he scored twice in March and added one assist. 7.25 average rating over four games. Goal of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen vs.FC Groningen - beautiful free kick from inside of the half-circle. Youth Intake 2034 And here’s the bunch of new players from this March. What a class of talented players! Level of footballing ability and talent is expected in Ajax, considering how much we invest in youth work, but personalities! Finally we’ve got almost a full class of professional/determined players. Only one unambitious player. The amount of talent was such that I could sign almost all of the youngsters to contracts (half of them were offered professional contracts right away) and dismissed only two kids. Combining their personalities with their ability this academy class can Melih Rüzgar The best prospect of this year’s class. 15-years old kid who is practically Eredivisie level centre-back and with a professional personality. Can’t get much better than that. Decent in the air, very aggressive, good tackler and technique attribute is 13 - perfect ball playing defender. My coaches already hint that he’s also more consistent than others, so perhaps we’ll see him in the first team already in the next season. Richard van Crooij Talented goalkeeper. Again very young, just 15 years of age. Decent handling and reflexes, but lacks composure and is a bit too ambitious and self-serving by nature. Jeroen Timmerman Doesn’t look like much at first sight, but my coaches say he has enough potential to become a good first team player. Two-footed full-back who is more natural on the left, but can play on the right as well, so his versatility is a huge plus. Peter Becker Young defender from Austria. Here’s a bit of a puzzle - he’s labelled as centre-back, but his jumping reach is just 7, so that’s not good enough to be in the centre. After trying so many seasons with Can Tas I’m not willing to go for another short centre-back. Very one-footed as well, but there’s a possibility to retrain him as a right-back. His technical ability isn’t very good, but it’s not awful either. Let’s see how it works out. Wayan Mandacan We didn’t need another striker, but this young kid with Indonesian roots caught my attention - physically good, aggressive and with good technique. Has several seasons to develop and his professional attitude could help him to get the most out of our coaches and facilities to become a great player. Eredivisie We’re very close to clinching our title. Vitesse, Feyenoord and FC Utrecht battle for next places. FC Twente and sc Heerenveen have picked themselves up in the second half of the season and moved away from the relegation zone, which means that Almere City, ADO Den Haag and Sparta Rotterdam are now in trouble. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 22 Author Share Posted August 22 April 2034 Fixtures and Results We started with a good 3:0 away win over Sparta who are battling against relegation. Kenneth Taylor set us on the way with a fabulous free kick after a fairly quiet first twenty minutes and just two minutes later Ja-Ryong Kim doubled our lead with a calm finish. Taylor scored his second from the spot to make it 3:0 at half-time and in the second half Sparta lost all discipline - their Finnish winger Toni Mäkelä was sent off for a two-footed tackle on Jongebloet and two more players were dismissed after picking up their second yellow cards of the match. Sparta was down to eight men since 80’, but we took our foot off the gas and couldn’t add more goals in the remaining time. Good win nevertheless and the frustration in Sparta players that boiled over in the second half shows where they mentally are at the moment. Our next opponents ADO Den Haag were another team struggling in the relegation zone - perhaps a little surprising to see them there, because they were predicted to finish 14th before the season started, but their poor squad building decisions cost them dearly - they lack a proper striker and failed to bring somebody in during the Winter transfer window, so their new manager Karim Rekik and a curious 4-4-2 diamond narrow formation haven’t helped them much, because they lack proper quality in the squad. The game itself had less importance for us, because it was the last match on Sunday and other results went our way, so the news reached Johan Cruijff Arena that we had secured our title before the kick-off. The KNVB Beker final was our most anticipated match in April. It was held at De Kuip - a true neutral venue for both finalists. The first half was a fairly even affair, but Vitesse took the lead when their tall winger Ramanui Faatiarau rose above Aning to head home from a point blank range. We had a good number of attempts and two good goal scoring chances in the first half, but failed to find the net and when Vitesse used our defensive mistake in the second half to make it 2:0 I felt the cup slipping away from us. Peter Misidjan scored with a fine header to keep us in the game, but Vitesse defended well in remaining time and we couldn’t find another open chance to score an equaliser, and so they defended their KNVB Beker win and retained the cup. We were left disappointed and empty-handed - in an even match we should have been just a bit more clinical up front and better in defence, but that’s football. The last time we managed to win the cup was back in 2029 - it’s been five years now and I’m getting quite frustrated with how difficult it has been for us to win it. We tried to wash away the sorrow from the cup final defeat in our next two derbies, starting with a narrow 1:0 win against Feyenoord. We took the lead on 24’ - Peter Misidjan put defenders under pressure, won the ball, went one-on-one and scored with a nice finish. Excellent individual performance. At half-time I felt that we were a slightly better team and deserved to have our 1:0 lead, but momentum swung to Feyenoord in the second half and although we had some decent chances too, they started to get better moments. Riswan Sinaga looked confident at times, but made one glaring error that almost allowed a Feyenoord striker to finish into the empty net, but the attempt went wide. Similarly Ogjnen Rajkovic stood out with his challenges and clearances, but also made two mistakes that almost cost us the goal. In the end we managed to hold onto our lead, but it wasn’t as convincing as I anticipated and Feyenoord could take away a lot of positives from their second half performance. Unexpectedly, injuries struck before our match with PSV Eindhoven. Kenneth Taylor’s participation was in doubt because of a pulled groin muscle, Amourricho van Axel Dongen was sidelined with a twisted knee and although our training schedule didn’t look too demanding Ja-Ryong Kim somehow managed to torn his abdominal muscle in one session so that our team doctor ruled him out for around two months. Season over for the winger, very unexpectedly. The Topper Derby itself resulted in a very impressive 4:0 win from the Philips Stadion. We dominated the first half - helped by an early penalty. Quenten Hose followed it quickly with a goal and PSV’s game plan seemed to be undone. Things got even worse for them when their goalkeeper Ivo Grbic made a huge error by coming out of the area for an interception, but missed it and allowed Peter Misidjan to score into the empty net. Olivier Aertssen finally wrapped up the first half for us with a fine header from a free kick to send us to the break with a 4:0 score line. Quite impressive, because we had just five attempts so far, but four goals. I have to say that PSV did improve in the second half and they threatened our goal several times, but Riswan Sinaga was on hand to make some crucial saves. Their attempts total was 19/10 at the final whistle, but most of those were headers that didn’t pose a serious threat and our win was never in doubt. So, an outstanding win for us and those two derby results relieve a little that sting we had from the cup final. Tactics and Players Against stronger opponents I chose to turn down our pressing intensity a little and it helped us to win against Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven (although we gave away initiative for certain periods), but couldn’t make a difference against Vitesse. Perhaps just a bit of luck is missing in this one. Hard to judge. Players are difficult to rate after such an inconsistent month. It’s easy to shine against the likes of ADO Den Haag and Sparta, but in the cup final and derbies I also saw some apprehensive body language, glaring defensive errors and missed chances that cost us a lot in the end. You have to perform when it matters the most and it’s not easy for every footballer. Injuries started to show their ugly face and Ja-Ryong Kim will be out until June with his torn abdominal muscle. Smaller problems for Taylor, van Axel Dongen and Mohamed Tahiri have affected their game time as well. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - our playmaker had a great start to the month with a brace and he was also one of the few players who didn’t disappoint in the cup final, so you could say that he always retained a certain standard in performances. Three goals in four games (including two penalties), but 7.70 average rating. Goal of the Month: Kenneth Taylor vs. Sparta Rotterdam - a wonderful free kick Our U-18 team again showed that they’re a real talented bunch and won the youth league. Eredivisie Vitesse have picked up their form and look like they’re finishing strong and will probably take the runner-up position. As I expected, Heerenveen and FC Twente are safe from the relegation zone. ADO Den Haag, Sparta and Almere City are the bottom three as it stands. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted August 26 Author Share Posted August 26 May 2034 Fixtures and Results Two easier games at the end of the season that didn’t decide anything and I let rotation players and youngsters get their chance. Both games finished with a draw, but they were very different games of football. We dominated against SC Cambuur, but our finishing was terrible. Our shooting was just 15/2 in this match and we wasted some decent chances. On the other hand we had rotten luck with woodwork, as we hit the posts or crossbar four times, but it just underlines our poor finishing. Generally good, but youngsters lacked composure up front. Heracles at Erve Asito was a tougher cookie to our inexperienced team. In the first half our defensive teamwork wasn’t the best and when Heracles scored on 31’ it felt like they deserved a goal - even though they didn’t create clear chances, they threatened our box quite often and we couldn’t keep the game under our control. We improved a little in the second half and van Axel Dongen equalised, but young striker Sander van Dijk missed two of his chances and we had to settle for a draw. It wasn’t a good performance from us by any means - just 9 key passes and 9/3 shooting - underwhelming to our standard. Players Well, I gave chances to rotation players/youngsters and they largely failed to impress and that’s a disappointment. Things were slightly better defensively, but not much. Only upside is that after those two games I hopefully don’t see any faces behind my office door complaining about game time or talking about deserving a better contract. Back to the training ground and we’ll see in the next season. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - our leader in midfield offered experience and consistency in those games Goal of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen vs. Heracles Almelo - well, that’s sorta given, huh? Eredivisie Vitesse finished as runners-up, Feyenoord were third and PSV Eindhoven finally climbed up to the more-less respectable fifth place. ADO Den Haag finished 16th, but couldn’t survive the relegation play-offs and went down with Almere City and Sparta Rotterdam. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted September 3 Author Share Posted September 3 Competitions Another… average season for us, I expect? After a solid first half of the Eredivisie season we won the league by a landslide in the end and point difference grew with every other match day. At the same time we couldn’t beat the odds in the Champions League and lost in the KNVB Final, so there’s still room for improvement and we’re not always able to fulfil our potential in those key matches. Tactics and Players Tactically the key component for me has been pressing intensity in our 4-2-3-1 system - less pressing against stronger opponents while retaining our positive mentality means we’re a bit more careful in defence while maintaining attacking threat and creativity up front. I’m also quite happy to find a new combination of roles that looked very promising in London against Spurs and eager to try it out in the Champions League against other strong opponents. The season was to some extent affected by the departure of John Meeuwis and Rik Vos in January. Vos certainly was outperforming his ability and attributes here in Ajax (for some reason in FM22, all right side centre-backs in my formation are having a great rating valuation all the time), so his performances in numbers were definitely more impressive than actual contributions on pitch. I feel that Rik Vos is quite easily replaced (especially after Olivier Aertssen recovered from injury), but John Meeuwis had 20 goals to his name in half of the season and his role is more difficult to fill. Peter Misidjan has been decent enough in the second half of the season and managed to score fairly consistently, but he’s not a natural striker and it might take a couple of more seasons before our young talents mature, so it’s a process that needs more time. Talking about youngsters - it’s been a good season for a number of them. Frank Goossens has played in defence more than he hoped for. Joel van de Sande has been pretty good in midfield, at least in Eredivisie level. Jort van Leeuwen, Sladan Krunic and Sander van Dijk made their debut for the club. We have a number of players out on loan and most of them are progressing well in training, so we have some options for the next season. Quenten Hose has taken over the main goal scoring role after Meeuwis’ departure, but the downside of this is that he’s attracted a lot of attention from big clubs. Tottenham, Chelsea and AC Milan are keeping tabs on him as I write this and I wonder if we are able to keep him at Ajax over this Summer. Competitions Perhaps the most shocking result from this season was Leicester City winning the Champions League. They defeated FC Barcelona in the final after a penalty shoot-out. Eredivisie Awards We had a good number of awards after the Eredivisie season finished. Quenten Hose took the Golden Boot, Riswan Sinaga was named the Goalkeeper of the Year and Joel van de Sande took the Young Player of the Year award. I was named Manager’s Manager of the Season once again. Only John Meeuwis couldn’t continue his goal scoring run after leaving in January and there the awards went elsewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted September 13 Author Share Posted September 13 Summer 2034 The Club In June I received news about the board takeover in Ajax. Nothing much changed and it was executed quietly, but some directors (including Edwin van der Sar) left the club as a result. In more than 10 years in the club I’ve turned into this sort of legendary manager that any board doesn’t want to replace, so there were not even hints about that. Our relationship with the new leadership started well, because my request to improve training facilities (that were downgraded in Spring) was accepted immediately and some of the money I’ve amassed to the balance was spent towards that direction. Works should be finalised in September. Another really exciting news is that Jong Ajax is back in Keuken Kampioen Divisie for the next season! It means our youngsters can get game time on a more competitive level. World Cup 2034 The World Cup was held this Summer - six of our players were included in the Holland national team, but Holland were eliminated in the first knockout round after a 0:1 defeat from Germany. On one hand, a little bit short of expectations, but Germany is tough to beat and we weren’t lucky with the draw on that occasion. Transfer Window Number one player of interest for other teams this Summer was Quenten Hose - I prepared myself to accept bids over £50m and/or if any really big team would like to make a bid, but we only received offers from mid-table sides from top leagues and as Hose himself usually declared that he’s not interested in the move, I had no problems rejecting those offers that were around £45-47m mark. I extended contracts of several first team players and as some of them had turned 30 already, I used the chance to extend the length of the deal with some decrease of the base salary and that proved to be quite useful, as we managed to create around £30,000 p/w free resources for wages. Agents were quite… normal and we reached agreements rather fast, but it was a different story with Mohamed Tahiri - he rejected our contract proposal and looked upset, declaring his intention to move away from Ajax in the next Summer. In this situation I had no other options than to accept a £4m bid from CF Genoa and let him go so that we received at least something for him. I was sorry to let him go as he was a talented young player, but that’s the thing with football business sometimes. I also allowed young winger Melih Karaca to leave to FC Utrecht for £925k +30% next transfer clause. Bids started to come for him and while he was rated with 3,5* potential by my coaching staff I saw more than one attribute in his report that was lacking. In summary I doubt he would ever make it into the Ajax first team (but at the same time can be considered a decent signing for FC Utrecht). On the transfer deadline day I allowed Loet van Fessem to leave to Oostende for £1,7m + clauses. Decent fee for a 20-years old centre-back, but I feel that he’s not as talented as several younger players we have in U-18 and it was probably time for him to move on. Loans Metodi Borisov to Almere City Calvin Francis to FC Volendam Marcel van Doorn to FC Volendam Mees Knol-Koolen to ADO Den Haag Mark Mõttus to NAC Breda Bence Kertesz to Charleroi Again two of our possible backup keepers are away on loan - beneficial to their development, but leave us without backup if anything should happen to Riswan Sinaga. Mees Knol-Koolen’s move is another doubtful one - a 17 years old attacking midfielder who could have got his minutes in the first team after Tahiri’s departure, but on the other hand he’ll probably get more game time in ADO. It leaves us very thin in the AMCa position - I probably will solve it by dropping Peter Misidjan back to AMCa from time to time and use Sladan Krunic more in attack. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted September 16 Author Share Posted September 16 Squad Update 2034 Goalkeepers No changes here. We have the best keeper in the Eredivisie in Riswan Sinaga. Calvin Francis is a decent backup, but he was really wanted by FC Volendam and I sent him out on loan for another season, so our own backups are our youngsters in Jong Ajax and U-18 team. Defence We have established leaders in defence and the first players (Jermoumi, Aertssen and Aning) are turning 30 this year, so a lot of experience as well. Prince Aning is currently included to the Holland national team, so there’s no question about ability but on the Champions League level we’re a bit short. Our young full-backs Svec and Jongebloet are not the most technical players and that could be a problem because they’re not as effective in supporting our attack. In central defence we have a lot of talent coming up from the youth ranks who I believe can surpass Aertssen and Rajkovic’s ability in a few seasons. Frank Goossens is one of those who will probably get more game time this season. Midfield We continue to lack depth in midfield. Mohamed Tahiri is gone, so I can’t use him as BBMs any more, but Joel van de Sande had a great season back in Ajax in 2033/2034 and own the Young Player of the Season award, so I expect him to progress and continue his development. Kenneth Taylor is our leader in midfield with Can Tas able to play DLPd, BBMs and BWM roles. Attacking Midfield On the wings I feel we have enough depth and different options. All eyes are on Quenten Hose who is our biggest goal scoring threat. Experienced Amourricho van Axel Dongen and South Korean international Ja-Ryong Kim. In the centre we have a cultured midfielder Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson who is nearing 100th caps for Iceland, but Tahiri’s departure left us without clear number two, so I promoted young Mees Knol-Koolen who had a stellar season for our U-18 team and who might be ready for some first team minutes. The 17 years old is certainly not able to carry the team and we might be in trouble if Hlynsson should pick up a serious injury, but let’s hope for the best. However, Knol-Koolen joined ADO Den Haag for a loan before our season kicked off, so AMCa is probably our thinnest position this season and it’s possible I need to drop down Peter Misidjan from attack, when necessary. Some grey hairs are evident here too, as Hlynsson turned 30 in January and van Axel Dongen will reach that milestone in September. Strikers Peter Misidjan took over the CFa role. Sladan Krunic and Sander van Dijk provide options from the bench. This is again one of the positions that does not lack talent in the youth team and we have 4-5 good options coming up in the next seasons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted September 20 Author Share Posted September 20 August 2034 Fixtures and Results We had decent friendlies in pre-seasons. It wasn't all wins for us, but we got strong opponents (mostly in away games) and I got to test out our possible Champions League tactics, so I wasn’t too disappointed with draws. The Johan Cruijff Schaal final in Amsterdam belonged to us - we tactically played a very good game with our first team squad, limited Vitesse’s options in attack and controlled the game and finally took the lead on 30’. Ja-Ryong Kim had a great chance to score, sent his first attempt to the post, but collected the rebound and put it into the empty net. Vitesse couldn’t threaten enough in the second half and Sladan Krunic’s tap-in late in the game secured a confident 2:0 win for us. We looked really solid defensively, threatened from set pieces and eventually used our chances well, so I was pleased with the performance. If we could show this kind of football in league games in the upcoming season we’ll be fine. Our Eredivisie campaign kicked off in the brand new RKC Waalwijk Stadium - our opponents were just promoted to the top division and had a new stadium, so a fresh start for them in several ways. The new stadium didn’t help our opponents much - we dominated the first half and after wasting a few chances went to half-time with a well-deserved 1:0 lead - Ja-Ryong Kim headed in right before the half-time whistle. We continued well in the second half, threatened from set pieces and had firm control over possession (in the end it was 73/27 to us). Hlynsson curled into the top corner from 15 metres to make it 2:0 before Kim doubled his tally after a fine pass from Prince Aning. The South Korean winger was the best player of the game with two goals and an assist and the 3:0 win from away game was quite convincing. We continued with an even more impressive 4:0 win in the Topper derby. Peter Misidjan scored a flyer and doubled our lead right before the half-time whistle and that 2:0 goal probably struck PSV players badly. The only tough moment for us in the first half came on 19’ - Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi came off with an injury after a tackle and that one looked bad early on. Giorgio Jongebloet came on for him, but it didn’t change the outcome of the match and we continued to dominate in the second half - Quenten Hose delivered a low strike from the edge of the area to make it 3:0 and Peter Misidjan completed his hat-trick. PSV threatened our goal slightly in the final ten minutes, but they couldn’t beat Riswan Sinaga and the final score remained 4:0 - outstanding win in front of home fans. Tactics and Players I stuck with our usual 4-2-3-1 formation in those games, only tuned down pressing one notch against Vitesse and PSV which I know makes football a little less entertaining, but maintains better defensive formation and gives opposition less chances. Our first eleven was quite clear in defence and midfield and in the first games I didn’t have any problems finding the winning team. It was a bit different in four positions, though. Ja-Ryong Kim has surprised so far this season - he started in the Johan Cruijff Schaal and scored a goal there and followed this up with good performances in the league. As a result Amourricho van Axel Dongen found himself on the bench in August matches and understandably started to get a little bit concerned about his game time. Our schedule will become more difficult in September and October and I expect him to get his chance soon. Peter Misidjan was seriously disappointing in the first few games - he couldn’t get himself to shooting positions and failed to find teammates with through balls. However, he shone brightly in our last match against PSV Eindhoven and proved his quality, although this inconsistency troubles me a little. Player of the Month: Ja-Ryong Kim - three goals in August from our South-Korean winger Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. RKC Waalwijk - curled into the top corner from 15 metres. Eredivisie Strong start from us, but also from Vitesse and Feyenoord. At the bottom of the table we find smaller teams (some of them recently promoted) who will probably struggle throughout the season. Champions League We’re sharing the group with Juventus, Wolfsburg and Panathinaikos. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted September 23 Author Share Posted September 23 September 2034 Fixtures and Results Before the international break we visited SC Cambuur. In the first half we threatened from set pieces and one free kick combination found Ognjen Rajkovic in the box. The centre-back smashed his shot into the roof of the goal to give us an early lead. The Serbian centre-back also had a good opportunity to head in from a corner just six minutes later, but at the same time we didn’t have too many good opportunities from open play and at the break it was just 1:0. Things improved in the second half - the SC Cambuur goalkeeper made a mistake by coming out for the ball, missed it and as a result Misidjan could finish into the empty net. Three minutes later Hlynsson made it 3:0 and although Cambuur scored with a close range header, we answered instantly with our fourth. Young striker Sander van Dijk came on and scored his first ever senior goal in injury time to make it five for us - a good number of goals from the away game. After two weeks of international break Fortuna Sittard proved out to be a tougher opponents, at least in the first half - we had just one decent attack in the end of it, but Quenten Hose scored from our very first chance of the game and we went to the break with a 1:0 lead, just to come back and score on 46’ - excellent reaction to my critical half-time team talk. Fortuna had a few half chances before substitute Sladan Krunic found a goal with a good strike and although we conceded a goal, Krunic doubled his tally just a few minutes later. Our Champions League campaign started with a trip to Wolfsburg - a tricky tie against the team who has finished fourth consistently in the Bundesliga. I was more cautious with the tactics and we started with a balanced mentality and less intense pressing. The first half was fairly even from both teams - in the first 20 minutes it looked like we were more attacking and had some shots on target, but later Wolfsburg got better control in midfield and threatened. No real chances, though, and defence was strong from both teams until a glaring error from a defender allowed Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson to win the ball high on the pitch and he finished with a fabulous striker from 17 metres - a great goal! Wolfsburg tried to equalise in the second half and they had one perfect chance on 64’ when their striker found space behind our centre-backs, but this attempt went wide and others were easily dealt with by Riswan Sinaga. In the end we maintained our narrow lead and returned from Germany with a valuable 1:0 win. PEC Zwolle, who were just promoted back to the Eredivisie, couldn’t pose much challenge to us at Johan Cruijff Arena. I rotated the team a lot - Richard Svec and Joel Comvalius started as our full-backs, but despite that we dominated the first half. However, after a number of good opportunities we still couldn’t find a goal. The second half was a similar story, but at least Quenten Hose gave us the lead with a placed shot. I took off Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and young striker Sander van Dijk came on, who in turn wasted three good goal scoring opportunities before Ja-Ryong Kim set him up so that he could double our lead with a tap-in into the empty goal. And that second goal two minutes from the final whistle was so important, because an uncharacteristic lapse of concentration in injury time gifted Zwolle their goal that could have hurt us a lot. 2:1 win in the end didn’t satisfy me entirely - our shooting was 30/13 with 4.45 xG and based on those numbers alone we should have scored more goals. I was also disappointed with Joel Comvalius who got his chance to impress after Jermoumi’s injury, but who was booked early and failed to show anything significant in attack. FC Twente manager Mark van Bommel showed his annoyance with me in his pre-game interviews, criticising our lack of international players, tactics and more, but on the pitch his team was no match for us - we controlled the first half from start to finish, scored an early goal and when Quenten Hose made it 2:0 few minutes before the break it looked almost like a white towel was thrown to the pitch from Twente. Sladan Krunic made it 3:0 in the second half (his fourth goal of the season) and wasted a couple more chances. Very comfortable win for us. Quenten Hose was the man of the match with his two goals and assist. The Club The new board decided to offer me a new contract. Perhaps our good results in the beginning of this season helped as well, but we quickly reached an agreement and I signed a new deal for £45,000 p/w. Also, the planned training facilities upgrade that began in Spring were finalised in September and we could once say that we have a state of the art training ground. Tactics and Players Pretty happy with our results and number of goals in most games. Tactically the tricky part was Wolfsburg, but there we snatched a 1:0 win with a balanced 4-2-3-1 formation. I feel that the changes I’ve made during the games have been spot on, too. For example, anticipating the opposition’s more risky and adventurous attacking setup in the final 10-15 minutes, we’ve countered it by switching our left-back from FBa to FBs when protecting the lead and in European games turning our BBMs to BWMs or even BWMd - hard-working midfield role, but oriented more to defence and winning the ball back. I’m happy with the efforts from most of the players and even youngsters like Sander van Dijk have started to find the net in September. Training has been excellent - I’m happy if I see above 8.00 averages in our weekly training reports and that has been the case. Only selection problem has been Jermoumi’s injury - Giorgi Jongebloet has been decent in most games replacing him, but he looked like a serious defensive liability against Fortuna Sittard and Joel Comvalius’ below par performance against Zwolle didn’t impress me either. We have two more months to go on before Jermoumi returns from injury, so younger players need to improve. Quenten Hose has seven goals so far (all in Eredivisie), Peter Misidjan has scored four. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson has been our creative force in midfield - he makes the most key passes and creates chances (from corners as well as from open play) and his influence in attack is probably the highest. I hope he can continue with this kind of form until Christmas. Some individual milestones from September: Prince Aning made his 300th league appearance for the club against SC Cambuur Sander van Dijk scored his first senior goal in the same match Young goalkeeper Metodi Borisov (who’s currently away on loan) made his debut for Bulgaria during the international break Player of the Month: Quenten Hose - scored six goals in September. Our right winger really is starting to find his form Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. Wolfsburg - a great strike from the edge of area in an important game to secure us 1:0 win Eredivisie Vitesse have kept up with us so far, while Feyenoord was the first from the three to stumble. FC Utrecht and AZ Alkmaar are surprisingly in the middle of the table. Excelsior’s third place might come as a shock, but they have had fairly easy opponents in the first weeks and I expect to see them lose some games against stronger teams. Champions League Good start for us. Wolfsburg away was a tricky tie and to start our campaign with a win there puts us in a good position after the first match day. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted Tuesday at 16:03 Author Share Posted Tuesday at 16:03 October 2034 Fixtures and Results As the season goes on, our opponents get stronger. In the first weeks we managed to avoid stronger clubs in Eredivisie (with exception of the Topper derby in August), but we’re going to host AZ Alkmaar in October. Our Champions League season continues with a home game against Juventus. Juventus is one of the European giants and beating them is never easy. I went to the game with our usual positive 4-2-3-1 and only tuned down our pressing intensity a little, hoping that our home advantage and overall cautiousness of Juventus as an away team might give us an edge, but it wasn’t that easy. We had one good goal scoring chance in the first half - Quenten Hose’s attempt from a narrow angle was parried away with a goalkeeper’s foot - but Juventus had three, and one of those three attempts landed in the net. Giorgio Jongebloet struggled to contain Brazilian winger Jose Silva on his flank and the opponent did beat him on several occasions. It’s difficult to blame the defender when he has 13 for acceleration and Jose Ricardo has 19 - such a difference in sprints would make marking an attacker really difficult for anyone and it was the case here as well. We improved a little in the second half and on 67’ were awarded a penalty after a defender tripped Hose in the box. Kenneth Taylor equalised from the spot, but Jose Ricardo scored another goal to make it 1:2. Young striker Sladan Krunic could have equalised for us, as he found himself in a one-on-one situation in the last minute of the match, but his attempt was met by a brilliant save from the goalkeeper. That summed up our night - it wasn’t a terrible performance from the team, but we were a bit short in certain situations and sometimes found ourselves outclassed by opponents with better individual quality. Might have been a different result on a different day if we’d been more clinical in front of goal, but overall 1:2 was a fair result. The Noord-Hollandse derby at Johan Cruijff Arena finished with a solid 2:0 win. AZ Alkmaar is one of the clubs I really can’t understand in recent seasons - they have a really large squad, although they don’t play any European football this season. They bring in some mediocre players while their own academy produces good enough talents for Eredivisie level. At the same time their large squad includes mostly mediocre players. They should get rid of all the deadwood, develop youngsters and bring in key players to improve the squad, but instead they’re wasting finances on wages for players they almost never use on the pitch. Their AFAS Stadium has 19,500 seats which is actually rather small to current Eredivisie standards (remember, it’s 2034 in my save and several clubs have invested in new facilities). And controversies continue on the pitch - they came against us with a bottom-heavy 5-3-2 DM WB formation, which basically means eight players defending, with DMC between wing-backs in front of the defensive line. This tactic basically gives possession to opponents and hopes for a quick counter, trying to use forward-moving wing-backs and/or searching two strikers with a long ball. Well, it didn’t work out. The main threat is that if you give up so much possession and drop deep, opponents will get a lot of corners and set pieces and this was exactly what happened in the first half - we threatened from dead ball situations on several occasions. van Axel Dongen saw his free kick touch the crossbar, Can Tas headed against the post from a free kick and eventually we took the lead when Aertssen found the net with a powerful header from a free kick. Quenten Hose wasted our best chance of the first half, somehow hitting the post from just two metres out. Substitute Sladan Krunic scored with a simple tap-in in the second half after Ja-Ryong Kim found him at the near post with a low cross and that was it - AZ never really threatened our goal and left Amsterdam with a 0:2 defeat. After the international break it was time to visit Arnhem. We have straight wins so far (seven out of seven games) this season and Vitesse are not far behind with 19 points (six wins and a draw), so it was a huge match. Not the title decider, because it’s still just October, but definitely a title six pointer. Vitesse were searching for revenge for their defeat in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and they probably knew that if they’d lose this one at home, our advantage in the table would be difficult to close up. Vitesse missed their best striker Prince Lomboto in the game, while we had doubts over Hlynsson who had hurt his groin muscle in training, so we started with Peter Misidjan in AMCa position and young Sladan Krunic up front. The game itself was nothing I expected in the first half - Vitesse had initiative and attacked more. Post-match statistics showed curiously that we had momentum (probably because we had more of the possession) but all attacks came from Vitesse, they created a couple of chances and one of their headers touched our crossbar, but we only had one attempt before the break and that’s not good enough. I made changes at half-time: switched to a balanced mentality, instructed Can Tas to act as a BWMs instead of BBMs and it helped to gain us some ground in the final third. I also replaced Sladan Krunic who looked nervous and brought on Hlynsson (who played with a knock). However, Vitesse’s Abu Kargbo received his second yellow card of the match on 60’ and was sent off as a result. After that we felt more comfortable in possession and eventually found the winner on 84’ - Can Tas crossed from our right and Quenten Hose scored with a well-executed over-the-hip volley. Beautiful goal. Can Tas was later selected as the player of the match not only because of his assist, but also for his immense work rate in midfield. In the end, an extremely valuable 1:0 win for us from GelreDome. Vitesse can rue their lack of discipline, but I think it’s at least the third match in a few seasons against us where they have picked up a red card and it has caused them trouble in the end. I’m not sure we would have won with 11 vs. 11 (at least I would have been happy with a draw) and our performance up to that point wasn’t something to be really pleased with, but we got it over the line and for that I’m proud of the team. Our Champions League game with Panathinaikos was a big unknown for us - although it was in European competition and it was the third match day in our group stage, our scouts claimed they didn’t know anything about Panathinaikos - no tactical formations, nothing about players etc. So I went in completely blind, hoping that our usual positive 4-2-3-1 will do the work in Athens. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson carried a knock and I started with Peter Misidjan in attacking midfield and Sladan Krunic up front and in hindsight perhaps that was what cost us the game. We had initiative in the first half, but couldn’t find a goal. Panathinaikos relied on breaking up the game with fouls and they collected 20 in the first half alone. I switched to standard tempo in the second half, but it didn’t change things - Panathinaikos scored instead, completely against the run of play and on 79’ they added their second goal from a set piece, so we returned with our tail between legs - 0:2 from the away game. Some words could be said about the referee - Panathinaikos made 30 fouls in the match, but they were only booked once - some sort of Greek refereeing there. We were poor with our finishing and clumsy with defence and not much good was to be said about the performance of individual players - 6.61 average rating shows we were poor overall. At least we reacted well, with a resounding 4:0 win over FC Emmen in the last match of October. Kristian Nökkvi Hlnysson scored a brace, Quenten Hose added a goal and Frank Goossens headed in from a corner to make it 4:0 even before the first half was over. We completely destroyed FC Emmen - created 3 clear cut chances and 11 half-chances in the game with 4.79 xG and gave them no options to come back. We also hit the woodwork three times, so 4:0 was actually understatement for how much better we actually were. So, despite our two defeats in Europe, we still have a 100% record in Eredivisie so at least one competition is going well for us. Tactics and Players As the results showed we struggled in European games, but everybody did fairly well in the league games. Giorgio Jongebloet has started to grow into that right-back role and his performances have improved in recent weeks. We have a good rhythm and rotation going. Amourricho van Axel Dongen hasn’t featured much this season, but he dished out two assists in the last game of the month and finally seemed to get it going. Hopefully he’ll do better in November. In attack Peter Misidjan seemed to have lost his mojo - no goals in October. Sladan Krunic started the month well but after the international break he too failed to impress against stronger opponents, so questions about that position. We need a striker who can score goals. So far others have helped us out - especially Quenten Hose and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. Hose has 9 goals so far - all in Eredivisie and with that he leads the league’s goal scoring charts. The international window saw several players in action. Riswan Sinaga, Prince Aning, Kenneth Taylor and Can Tas featured for Holland (although their performances were mediocre). Metodi Borisov has established himself as the new first choice goalkeeper for Bulgaria (being just 19 years of age) and Bence Kertesz has become regular for Hungary. The main reason to celebrate was Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson’s 100th appearance for Iceland - he’s our most experienced international (Ja Ryong Kim has around 70 caps for South Korea). Player of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson - some great performances from the midfielder, two goals and two assists in October. But perhaps the biggest proof of his influence was that he was absent in the defeat against Panathinaikos - that shows how he affects our game. Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. Vitesse Arnhem - technically well-executed volley that proved to be the winner in a crucial match Youth Work In 2034 there’s 11 players in the Holland national team who trained in Ajax - almost half of the squad. Proof that our youth work is still by far the best in the country. Eredivisie We’re still at 100%. Vitesse are now seven points back already and PSV Eindhoven is looking good as well. Feyenoord are probably a little bit disappointed not to challenge for the title in the early part of the season, but generally the table looks like the pundits expected. Champions League Two defeats in October send us back in the table, but three clubs are level and the group is wide open at the moment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draakon Posted yesterday at 08:49 Author Share Posted yesterday at 08:49 November 2034 Fixtures and Results Five games in November (due to international break), and mostly home games. We had high confidence after that 4:0 win over FC Emmen and we managed to carry that into November to defeat Heracles 3:0 in an away game. Pretty easy match for us, because Heracles started with a defensive 4-4-1-1 formation and conceded midfield without a fight. Quenten Hose headed in an early goal to give us the lead. Kenneth Taylor missed a penalty on 40’, but it didn’t matter, because Peter Misidjan scored with a placed shot to send us to the break with a 2:0 score line. Misidjan added another goal late in the second half that was otherwise a fairly quiet affair. Three goals for us, no real chances for Heracles and a very good overall performance from the team. We needed a big win against Panathinaikos at home. After a 0:2 defeat in Athens it might be possible that we’re level in the table and in that case games between clubs is the first tie-breaker, so a 3:0 or bigger win would be needed to make sure we’re ahead of the Greek club and we managed to do that. Panathinaikos were much more timid in the away game - they surrendered midfield fairly quickly and we enjoyed around 75% possession in both halves. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson gave us an early lead from a point blank range. His shot took a big deflection and that took their goalkeeper out of the situation completely. Olivier Aertssen was pushed in the corner situation and van Axel Dongen doubled our lead from the spot and substitute Anass Sarpong made it 3:0 with a good strike in the second half. Very confident win and the team managed to do exactly what was expected of them. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson was once again our key player in attack - scored a goal, created four chances for teammates and gave eight key passes. NEC Nijmegen didn’t pose a real threat either. We took an early lead on 3’ - Girgio Jongebloet sent a cross to the box, the ball went through players and landed at the near post where Ja-Ryong Kim was completely unmarked to slot it in. Despite our early goal NEC got their defence more-less in order after that and despite our possession we couldn’t create more chances in the second half. Things improved after the break - Quenten Hose had a great chance and saw it saved, Peter Misidjan missed his opportunity, before we earned a penalty that Taylor converted on 60’. Complacency started to show in the final ten minutes and NEC found a few good moments with their direct approach and long balls behind our defence. In the end it was Peter Misidjan who had the last word - playing as a AMCa he received a pass from our right and sent a real belter from 22 metres past the goalkeeper - 3:0 and a solid win at home After 11 straight wins in Eredivisie complacency is starting to become a real problem - every time we have more than a two-goal lead I see happy faces on the pitch who do not look concentrated on task at hand and it’s difficult to find a substitution from the bench who would be focused and committed to the game. My team talks have turned from praise to warnings for a few weeks already, but this sort of carelessness will cost us sooner or later. Statistical note: we’re now 80 games undefeated at Johan Cruijff Arena in Eredivisie. It’s more than 5 seasons. After the international break we recorded a fairly easy 2:0 win over sc Heerenveen. We controlled the game from start to finish, but somehow missed easy opportunities in front of goal and (on rare occasions) were met by outstanding goalkeeping. We finally took the lead on 28’ and that goal took two attempts - first one from Hlynsson was blocked and Peter Misidjan slotted in from the rebound. Sander van Dijk started the game as a striker (PFa) and his goal in the beginning of the second half made it 2:0 and that was effectively all that was needed. A clean sheet and a two-goal win - not really impressive, but good enough to march on. I also had an eye on the Juventus game that was just three days away and asked players to press with less intensity in the second half to keep us fresh. I was hopeful for a decent result against Juventus, but this hope was shattered already after 37 seconds of football - we conceded an early goal. In the next 15-20 minutes we looked decent enough, but found ourselves under strong pressure between 26-32’ and that resulted in an own goal from Taylor that happened when defending a free kick. The second half was quiet until Juventus scored their third on 83’. Our game lacked creativity (only 7 key passes) and chances - Frank Goossens got a free header from a corner on 68’ but that went over the crossbar - and I had no real ideas how to change things. I guess I have to accept that this is the difference in quality between two teams at the moment. Our average rating was just 6.39, so we failed as a team and it was difficult to point out anybody who had a fairly good evening. Tactics and Players After our collectively poor display in Turin I handed out several fines and warnings for poor performances and was happy to see that my criticism had the desired effect. Most of the players reacted well and their determination and/or work rate improved because of that. Hopefully it improves things in December. In defence we’ve continued to rely on Giorgio Jongebloet. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi is making progress and is in a rehabilitation phase of his recovery from a broken foot and was back in the line-up for two games after the international break. As it stands at the end of November we have a clean bill of health and I'm delighted with that. We re-entered into negotiations with Frank Goossens over his contract and reached an agreement - he extended his deal here until 2039 for a promise of more first team football. It was also made clear that his preferred position/role is a centre-back (not a ball-playing defender), so I plan to use him more in rotation with Ognjen Rajkovic who has a bit low natural fitness and shows fatigue when he has to play two games in a week for a prolonged periods. I believe Goossens will get enough game time in the first team to continue his development here. In attacking midfield Amourricho van Axel Dongen had a great game against FC Emmen at the end of October and he managed to continue his good form into November - he scored and assisted against Panathinaikos. On the other hand - Ja-Ryong Kim started a game against NEC Nijmegen and instantly found himself on a score sheet, so I might have a luxury problem in my hands where both of our left wingers are in good form. At the same time Quenten Hose’s good form has started to drop in November - he lacks goals, stays quiet in games and more often than once I’ve seen him either anxious or complacent on the pitch. And I’m happy to report that Peter Misidjan has found his goal scoring form again - goals against Heracles, NEC and Heerenveen make his November much brighter than previous weeks were. At the same time our younger strikers struggled to impress in the fairly decent minutes they have got. I even got the message about Sladan Krunic finding it difficult to handle the pressure of playing in the first team. What does it mean? That I’ve given the youngster too many starts? At the end of November Quenten Hose had 10 goals (all in Eredivisie), Peter Misidjan had 8 in all competitions. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson remains to be our most creative player with more than 10 chances from him in Eredivisie. Player of the Month: Peter Misidjan - everybody was poor against Juventus, but for the other four games Misidjan gets the award - 7.30 average rating in November with four goals and an assist to his name. Goal of the Month: Peter Misidjan vs. NEC Nijmegen - a beautiful strike from 22 metres Eredivisie Strong lead in the table for us - the gap is already eight points. Excelsior has beaten the odds - at first I thought they’re so high up in the table because they had easier opponents in the first five or six match days. That was true, but they’ve been able to maintain their momentum against bigger teams and sit in the top five. At the bottom FC Emmen and MVV Maastricht look like relegation candidates. Champions League With one game to go it all comes down to whether we can beat Wolfsburg at home or not. Juventus have clinched the group and Panathinaikos are fourth. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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