We won! We won an actual game of football! We are now sixth in the Eredivisie, which means everything’s now a little less sh*t than it was one week ago. Whoohoo. David Neres proved me right, which is always nice. Can’t wait for Keizer to completely forget this performance and bench him again against Sparta. Maximilian Wöber, who joined us last summer for over seven million euros, finally made his starting debut: in October. He impressed, and also showed one of the glaring flaws in Ajax’ current policy.
The reason Wöber hadn’t seen the starting whistles of an Eredivisie-game yet, is less straight-forward than you might think. It’s not because the Austrian centre-back wasn’t good enough, or because Marcel Keizer was absolutely determined to keep a Viergever – De Ligt partnership in the middle going. No, Keizer chose to wait for over a month with startin Wöber, because ‘he wasn’t ready yet’.
Great save by Wöber! #heeaja pic.twitter.com/g7uulA2udH
— AjaxDaily (@ajaxdailydotcom) 1 oktober 2017
This is used for new Ajax-players all the time. They get bought and brought into Amsterdam, but first, they have to get ‘used to playing at Ajax’. This blinding arrogance always bugged me. How can you honestly think playing at Ajax is such a challenge technically, it requires a month or so to get used to? That’s f*cking bullsh*t. At the current rate, I am able to get straight into the Ajax-side, without me having to adapt whatsoever.
The current style of football warrants no such arrogance.
But even if he truly wasn’t ready, Wöber still shoud have started ahead of Mitchell Dijks from the start of the season. Dijks is growing into one of the most pathetic players I have ever seen play for our club. He is slow, he has no defensive intelligence whatsoever and his cross is abysmal. A-f*cking-bysmal. If Wöber actually ‘needs time’ to get better than Dijks, he shouldn’t have been bought in the first place, let alone for seven million euros.
Wöber’s first goal for Ajax, and what a goal it is! #heeaja pic.twitter.com/9rsMXzCldf
— AjaxDaily (@ajaxdailydotcom) 1 oktober 2017
PSV and Feyenoord, who are both playing better than us without having to play great, are both using their signings from the get-go. They don’t use similar excuses, which means they don’t have to wait until October to finally get the full squad they assembled in the summer. It’s actually embarrassing how every decision this club makes is taken from such a position of misguided superiority over our rivals, even though we have been surpassed by them within three months of reaching an European final.
The only thing in which we truly are as dominant as we claim to be is the financial aspect. We have garnered more money than PSV and Feyenoord combined, yet still have not been able to even get slightly ahead of these clubs. That’s unacceptable, and it’s the board of directors (once a-f*cking-gain) responsible for this. Just like they have been for the steady decline in the last years domestically. Let’s never forget that.
