Match date: 14 April 2013
The Eredivisie has had a great title race all year. Coming into the weekend, Ajax were leading, but the likes of PSV, Vitesse, and Feyernood all have a mathematical chance, if not a realistic one, to win the title.
With that said, Frank de Boer made a few changes to Ajax’s usual XI bringing in Christian Poulsen, Viktor Fischer, and Koelbienn Sigthorsson. He opted to play Lasse Schone on the right side of the front three in their 4-3-3 rather than in the midfield three, with Schone’s usual role being taken by Poulsen.
PSV played with a 4-2-3-1, with Mark van Bommel, Marc Strootman, and Ola Toivonen, at least on paper, making up PSV’s midfield three; a strong, physical midfield three which could be seen as the reason Poulsen was in Ajax’s XI.
Ebb and Flow
The game started without either team really getting an upper hand on the play. Within the first few minutes of the match, Christian Poulsen made two hard challenges, one off the ball and the other a very late shoulder charge into van Bommel. The Danish international didn’t get into the referee’s notebook, but showed why he was in team. PSV have a very physical side and weren’t going to play as good of football as Ajax so Poulsen’s inclusion was more to make sure that Eriksen and Siem de Jong had a chance to get forward.
Ajax Find Their Form
After the back and forth that the match began with, Ajax started to take control of the ball. Up until the match, they have average 61% possession in their Eredivisie matches. They weren’t at their best when combining in the final third of the field on the day, but they used their width well, especially on the right hand side which saw 45% of their attacks, compared to 27% down the middle and 28% down the left.
Perhaps the more impressive side of their game was when they were without the ball and their pressing ability. Siem de Jong had 7 interceptions as he, Eriksen, and Sigthorsson put pressure on PSV’s centre backs and Waterman. Below Sigthorsson had just chased a ball back to Waterman, who tried to play a ball into PSV’s midfield, but with Eriksen pressing, Ajax won the ball back and Fischer was given a good chance on goal which Waterman parried just far enough way from Sigthorsson.
Ajax Attack Wide
As mentioned before, Ajax attacked down the right side 45% of the time. This was down to a couple of different reason; the first being that Diers Mertens, though an obvious talent going forward, usually doesn’t have to track back too far against other teams, and didn’t really track van Rhijn’s runs forward too often. Mertens’ average position throughout the game showed him as the second highest PSV attacker, right behind Jens.
The second reason was that Lassa Schone is more of a central midfielder and thus naturally drifted inside to create a 4v3 in Ajax’s favour. This allowed van Rhijn space to get forward and go 1v1 with Willems or, with one of Schone, Eriksen, de Jong, or Sigthorsson, create a 2v1.
While on Schone, his presence in the side, along with Poulsen’s, allowed things toopen up for Eriksen who was relatively unmarked by Van Bommel and Strootman, and consistently found space higher up the pitch. The first two goals for Ajax came from Eriksen finding space in wide areas, especially the second where he had the whole left side of PSV’s final third to run into after Fischer dragged Hutchinson high up the pitch and Eriksen combined well with Blind. The first came when Eriksen easily got past Willems on the left, got to the byline and pulled back to Fischer who missed his kick, but van Bommel pushed the ball straight into the path of Sigthorsson to give Ajax a 1-0 lead.
Ajax’s third goal was a bit of the same. Eriksen again was afford too much time on the ball by Strootman and van Bommel and played a through ball into Ajax substitute Derk Boerrigter who outmuscled PSV’s substitute Pieters (who had only made one appearance before this one in the league, which resulted in a red card) and slid the ball past Waterman.
Conclusion
Ajax didn’t play their best game in terms of their usual attacking style, but got the result with Eriksen the key man in all three of their goals as well as PSV’s opener.
PSV afforded Eriksen too much time on the ball in their half of the field and only really pressed him when he was in Ajax’s half, which led to their first goal, but overall, PSV looked a much better side when they would press high up the pitch as a unit. Unfortunately, most of the time they didn’t do this and Toivoven and Lens let Moisander, Alderweireld, and Poulsen have too much time on the ball and allow them to easily build from the back.