Sorry Sir, We're Closed

The transfer window is closed; did we get everyone we wanted? Well, yes and more! I needed to get two new wingers, a new left back and a centre back to act as cover as we were a bit thin in that department. Before I arrived the club sold one of its best players Jan Vertonghen to Manchester United for £10.75 Million leaving me with a nice pot of money to spend. However, tight wage budgets stomped down some of my attempts to bring over Premiership quality players who have found themselves on the fringes recently. In total I bought 4 players and brought 1 on loan with a final bill of £9.25 Million. I suspect the Board would have preferred I spent less, but over half that amount was spent on Davide Astori – an Italian centre back for the future. Two of the best bargains were Tiago Dutra for £10K and Tarik Sektioui for £220K. Tiago is another one for the future, while Tarik will be my stop-gap between this and the next year as he is aged 33.

Overall, I am pleased, I do wish I could have bought Davide Astori for less but, sadly, sometimes things don’t go your way. I did also sign a Brazilian right back called Romario, but he will be travelling over next year. Also I am glad that any players I have that wanted to leave no longer have that chance now that the window is closed, if they will want to leave, we must make the most of them now.

Baptism of Fire?

It’s the end of my first month as the manager of AFC Ajax, and a long month indeed with 7 games in it! So how are we doing? Well in the league it has been perfect: 4 games with 4 wins, 7 goals scored to the 1 conceded. We beat Feyenoord on the opening game and since been playing the lower teams. Next month is similar again; lower teams and an easy Dutch Cup tie against amateur team JVC Cuijk away from home. Last month we also qualified for the Champions League, so we have achieved one of our goals this year. The draw this year, though, was not going our way. We are in Group F, which the media have dubbed the Group of Death for this year’s phase as it consists of ourselves, Inter Milain, Real Madrid and CFR Cluj. Our only hope, really, is to possibly pick of a sneaky win or point away from home against the big two, but otherwise, we will be aiming for 3rd in the group so we can qualify for the UEFA Cup.

Results 

League Table


















Star Player

Maarten Stekelenburg - Goalkeeper

Champions League or Bust!

This is a must for this year; make amends for Martin Jol’s failing in the Eredivise and get Ajax into the Champions League. Starting in the Third Qualifying round, we had an easy first round against Swiss champions Young Boys. We played away first, winning 5-1, meaning I could rest my key players for the home leg which we won 3-0. So far so good for the plan, and our league campaign continued well as we had the lower teams – 3 games in and no goal has been conceded. I attended the Champions League with the Chairman and Frank de Boer, a pleasant evening and we crossed our fingers for one of the easier teams. However, we did draw U.C. Sampdoria away first! Some pundits thought they over-achieved in coming 4^th, but I believe no bad team comes above Lazio and Juventus.

Match Result

Now this was a real match! Action at both ends, good attacking play of two teams with big ambitions. We came away with a fantastic result and some amazing goals! Our up-and-coming Attacking Playmaker Christian Eriksen pulled the strings from the moment he touched the ball. He set up two goals and scored one himself! Eriksen is a fantastic player and I will be looking at training personally a bit more.  Our only flaw – conceding two goals, but the Stadio Luigi Ferraris is an intimidating stadium and does have a history of fan-trouble. But the players handled themselves well and I can have no problems about conceding 2 if you put 4 past the opponent.