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. 

Eas-ay! Eas-ay!

First official match in charge and it’s a win in the Dutch Super Cup. I wanted to bring the fans a taste of things to come, and I think I just about managed it in this 2-0 victory against a good FC Twente side. The bookies and the pundits had us likely to be the winners, so the result wasn’t too much of a surprise, but you never know against these good teams.

The first goal came from one of their player’s poor pitch-length pass; our full back stamped it out and played a good through ball, two touches later it was in the back of the net! 10 mins later we had a penalty given our way, personally I thought it was a big call to make and wouldn’t have begrudged the ref if he didn’t give it, but he gave it. Unluckily for us we did not capatalise and our midfielder Lodeiro hit the cross-bar. So later, when we got another penalty in the 65^th min I wanted to see if he could not bottle it this time. He didn’t and we eased to victory.

Overall, we had a good game our opponents didn’t come at us and ultimately gave away chances under the pressure. Two penalties and a poor pass gave us our chances, so we seem to miss a bit of creativity – but I’ll put that down to the team not being adjusted yet to my tactics. It’ll come… just might take a bit longer

Why Don’t You Just Leave Me Alone?

In the past few days I have met the press; during the interview I told them my loft ambitions to turn Ajax from some UEFA Cup come-feeder-club to the Premiership, to one which can consistently make the Semi-Finals. This went down well with the fans, the board and the players who wanted to make an impact on the European stage.

I’ve also finished appointing my backroom and shuffling jobs around so I may bring in fellow countrymen. However, due to the language barrier, I kept on a majority of Dutch staff but offered them shorter contracts to the transition will happen slowly. However, I did sign about 7 new scouts who specialise in spotting raw talent across Europe. I have opted to hire two Dutch scouts as well so one will scout Holland for me while the other will travel to South America for young players. I am hoping that if we are able to bring across 2 or 3 young players from his trip, when they come to playing first team football, they will have Dutch duel passports.

On the bad side, my phone has nearly been non-stop will calls from so called ‘talent agents’ trying to whore out their players onto this club. I suspect these money men are trying to make some quick cash from a sale onto an inexperienced manager who’s looking to make an impact. Well, here is now, I will not be taking on their supposedly great services. There is a reason why I hired so many scouts, so that – I – can be the one who is good and who is not with their help. Not the help of someone who gets paid per-sale.

To end, we have a match in the Dutch Super Cup [their Community Shield] this Saturday against FC Twente. I want to give the fans a taste of things to  come, so we will be looking to attack from the start and win this ‘minor’ trophy.

Let's See This Team Then Uri

It’s the first week on the job; I’ve called up the unlucky 18 staff who I have sacked. Having over 15 Youth Coaches put me in an uncompromising position as I looked to bring more diversity and my own people. Reshuffling those who were not cut out to be Youth Coaches into teaching the First Team has also saved some money.

Wednesday 14^th July 2010, two days into my management of the club we have our first game against Ajax Cape Town – a South African academy the club set up. As I had yet to have a formal training session with the players, I let the assistant manager Danny Blind pick the team in a formation I created. This also was not an important or difficult match, so I asked him to tell the players to go out and show me what they could do against weaker opposition.

Tactic

Match Result

Overall the match went well, Mido disappointed upfront missing an easy opportunity and a poor back-pass nearly cost the team dear at 1-0. El Hamdaoui also had a disappointing first 20 mins, but improved later with a cross of his ending up in the back of the net from a big deflection. Later, though, with two goals coming from corners in the latter half restored some confidence in me that the team was learning the tactics I set up.