Good day to you and Happy Easter. We’re back with another update from Holland, hoping to provide you the perfect side dish for your 2nd Easter egg of the day. You can have chocolate for breakfast, I won’t tell anyone. If you’re new to this, the aim of the save is to win everything with Ajax. I mean absolutely everything. There’s no doubt the Champions League had made us less prolific, somehow, as Ronaldo has struggled to adjust back to life in the Dutch League. Anyway, enough of this pre-amble. Let’s amble.
You may recall in the last update we saw off Feyenoord in their own back garden, one of the two fixtures I really don’t look forward to. Anyway, with their form less than impressive they have dispensed of their manager and appointed a real legend of the game to try and turn things around
Although he’s an Ajax legend, he did finish his playing career at Feyenoord so it’s not a total surprise to see him back there. We have to wait a few months before he gets a great welcome at the Amsterdam Arena, and despite us falling behind Mr Sibon steps up to the plate to get us over the line.
I only play one striker and it’s been a case of rotating Ronaldo, Litmanen and Sibon depending on who grabs their chance when it comes their way. Although we still struggle to put teams away with the style and conviction we did last season, every now and again we really get it together.
We’ve also made the Amstel Cup final (anybody feeling thirsty again?) after seeing off our old rivals PSV
Lovely Jari. It’ll be Cruyff in the final though (not Jordi, who captained PSV here) after they saw off Herenveen
What an occasion that will be. Anyway, we’ve also had a Champions League campaign to battle through and after beating Monaco in match day one, it should have been quite straight forward. However defeat in Monaco left us looking over our shoulders and being 1-0 down in Kiev with 5 minutes to go, I was fearing the worst
Ironically Dyer’s injury forced my hand as Sibon came on for him to net a late winner after Hoekstra had levelled it up. A young Sheva had put us up against it earlier on. All of that meant we went through, in 2nd place, as one of the two best runners up
The Quarter finals matched us up with Benfica, who inflicted what I think is my first home defeat, leaving us trailing 2-1 heading to Portugal for the 2nd leg
Litmanen! I should never have doubted him. He’s scored twice as many as Ronaldo, and is comfortably our leading scorer
Ronaldo seemed like a good idea but he just hasn’t ever hit form, he has about half a dozen shots a game and the keeper saves them all. Is that his fault? Well I’m blaming him. Oh, and we’ve got a 100% record in the league
How wonderful. PSV will feel hard done, having lost only once (to us) all season. We do still have to visit PSV, but I would expect the title is sewn up by then.
I neglected to show you the Champions League semi final draw as I got distracted talking about Ronaldo. Here are the Quarter Final results
It’s Juventus for us
Before I leave you, let’s have a quick pop home (it’s only an hour flight. Or we can get a boat) to see how much Man Utd are still dominant
SIX GOALS CONCEDED!? They were good last season but this is getting silly. I hope to face them in the Champions League final. Also, Leicester in 2nd? We’ve seen stranger things…
At the bottom, two promoted clubs are in there with Ipswich pretty much gone. You can’t score only 18 goals and expect to survive.
Amazingly, Man Utd aren’t in the pointless cup final. But Newcastle and Sheffield Wednesday are.
Whilst in the FA Cup, what is this Mersey madness?
The Semi final looks a bit weird, but Man Utd will fancy their chance of another trophy.
Right, I’m out of things to show you now. Man Utd are basically coping us stride for stride but agaisnt better opposition, which annoys me a great deal. We’ll see if I have to face them next time around. Until then though, enjoy the rest of the long weekend and I’ll be back next Sunday. I’m competing in the FM17 Cup in Glasgow on Wendesday, and I have no idea what I’m doing. So keep an eye out on Twitter for my inevitable demise. Toodles for now.