Could we do an Ajax?

A selling club without the financial power of the premier league teams who have beaten Juventus and Real Madrid to make the semi-final of the Champions League.

I was just reading up about them and they’ve got their usual up and coming stars (at least one already sold for big money in the summer) but they’ve added some decent experience.

Looking at the players we’ve mostly used and I’d say we have the experience box ticked with some pretty decent players and a manager doing a great job at getting best out of them.

Could he now add the exciting youngsters? Peneranda, Cucho, Quina, Pedro, plus maybe another one or two to be unearthed soon?

Exciting to believe it could happen and seems like a possibility.

Udinese had a season or two where it all came together didn’t they?

 

Yes, comparing watford with 25 times national and 4 times European champions Ajax seems perfectly logical.

 

How many times have we won the Herts Snrs?

25? 50?

Reids made some interesting observations on this matter on the Ajax thread I put up. Worth merging?

 

I don’t actually mean win the league and get to the champions league semi-finals. More, could we ‘over achieve’ more than we already have. Is it possible we could break into the top 6 or even the top 4, maybe make the last 4 of the Europa League or even better? The point being we clearly have a talented squad, but it could be argued this particular group is playing and achieving at its limits. But with some exciting young blood could we take another step or two?

 

Good idea and if not I’ll hunt out that thread.

 

Yes I started reading his replies but stopped when I realised it didn't suit my argument.

 

I agree we could. However that costs money and the pozzos are in it to make money, not spend it.

We are at the top of a cusp. Next season will be more like the others seasons we've had in the prem after we've sold our stars and have to rebuild.

 

We are over achieving now though aren't we??!

 

I can't see how the situations of both clubs are even comparable, Ajax could lose 3 or 4 of their best players and still finish top, if we lost 2 or 3 of our best players we'd get relegated.

 

Our Academy is useless. When it does produce a superstar the idiotic EPP rules allow a big 6 team to steal him for nothing.

So in answer. No.

 

Absolutely we are! I said over achieve more than we already are.

 

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

The answer is no.

 

I have my tickets for Qaarabag already booked .

 

I get the feeling that next season after all the good players leave, our usernames will be very very very very apt.

 

We're already doing an Ajax. Both teams know their key players will be leaving in the summer and this really is make or break before a decade of irrelevance.

 

I love it when we start despairing early. Always important to maximise the amount of time one is miserable. Ajax will lose far more than we will. We are likely to lose Doucoure and possibly Deulofeu. I doubt that we lose anyone else critical. Ajax will be decimated.

And yes, we have a chance. I'd put it at 10%, but it's a chance.

 

Do an Ajax? This season is probably as good as its going to get.

 

I'm already despairing about this season. Lose this weekend and 7th starts to look fragile. We are massive outsiders for the fa cup.

I'm already preparing myself for no Europa League next season.

Think the fair play back door is out of the window!

It's a self preservation thing you see.

 

There's a major, major difference here, between being a big fish in a small pond or the complete opposite.

Ajax might be relative minnows on the European stage, but when a generation of talent is available in the Dutch league, they are in a position to Hoover it up. Ok, the big sharks are already circling to take those players on now, but it means that every decade, there's a chance that Ajax will reach a pinnacle and have a great side.

We aren't gonna Hoover up even the best young players in Hertfordshire. We are fishing in pretty much the same waters as clubs with much more money and prestige than us, and it's only by being extremely clever that we've gained any sort of an edge.

I remember when there was a great generation of Ukraine players. Dynamo Kiev were a strong European side then. They might be relatively minor compared to Barca, but in their own waters, they're megalodon.

We're sticklebacks. It's no comparison

 

However, I could certainly see Isaac Success slaughtering a load of sheep and then topping himself.

 

Driven insane by his performance vs Arsenal ? Needs a sword.

 

He certainly didn't have an aristeia

 

So has Wilmot.

One way.

 

Could we have a second opinion from a different log in?

 

He would miss if he tried it with a gun

 

Ok, so I asked the question and the general feeling is no and in terms of actually doing what Ajax do / have done, then yeah that’s the correct answer. We won’t win our league and certainly not many times and it’s hard to imagine I will ever see us in the champions league semi-finals in my lifetime.

But I was more looking at an equivalent achievement. Ajax are a big player in their country, but in Europe they are probably ranked outside the top 50 - 100 in terms of wealth? They are a side you’d expect to see in the champions league, but not necessarily in the knockout stages and certainly not beating Real Madrid and Juventus and getting in the semi-finals!

Our version of this, in my opinion, would be to end in the top 6 one year, or reach the latter stages of the Europa League, hopefully win a cup, and all within a few seasons. It requires one squad, one set of players, all together over one or two seasons, like Ajax have now. They’ve done it on a shoestring budget. They are going to have the big boys rip it apart by buying the talent from them. But right now, in this moment, the Ajax fans won’t care less, and would we?

They’ve got some experienced players with quality about them and a manager getting the best from them. We’ve got that. But they’ve also got this crop of highly talented youngsters and the blend between the two has resulted in their current success.

We don’t have those youngsters coming through our academy, but we do have some we own. What if Javi could integrate them all and let them loose? What if the blend between the two worked?

Cucho, Lukebakeo, Peneranda, Quina, Pedro.

A couple of extra good quality experienced CB’s, keep what we have, add the exciting youngsters.

Do an Ajax!!

 

Yeah, no

 

Nope, not a chance.

In terms of wealth, you're right that Ajax aren't at the top, they've not been in the top 30 since 2014 (27th), but I suspect they're still in the top 50 somewhere. Their revenue is actually not a mile away from ours. Their revenue for 2017 was €118million, a bit less than Watford's on around £125m

However, it appears that Ajax have a far lower cost base, e.g. wages - Ajax's wage bill is c.£50mil, while ours is c.£86mil!

However, this brings us back to the point noted previously by others in this thread as to why we could never emulate them - the reason why Ajax are able to do so well despite their modest revenue is because they don't have to pay high transfer fees and substantial wages for top talent; by being the biggest team in the Netherlands they get pretty much first dibs on the best players in the country going in to their academy. Fourteen of Ajax’s current senior squad are players that are either graduates from the academy or started playing first-team football at Ajax - these are players Ajax would have had to pay insignificant fees to get to join, and will not be on huge wages as they're still young, and/or loyal. The main downside of this for Ajax is that once established as players at a high level they typically get sold abroad to where they can earn higher wages.

The players coming through their academy are often of the standard to be playing regularly at Champion's League level. As far as I'm aware, during the PL era Watford have only ever had two players from the academy who have gone on to play CL football, one being Young, who we actually first sold to Villa (not a CL club, before Man Utd bought him), the other was Sancho who got nabbed by a bigger fish before we could even get a fee. None of our youngsters you mention there look likely to play for a CL club in the near future, and not to forget that they had to be signed from far and wide. Richarlison may still play for a CL club, but he also didn't come through our academy - we had to already pay £12mil to get him.

It's not impossible for us to uncover the occasional gem, but not feasible to gather and retain so many of then. For us to emulate Ajax, it would need to be as if, say, the likes of Sterling, Kane and Stones had all come through our academy at the same time, and being able to keep them for a few seasons before they got nabbed.

In addition, the relative strength of the Premier League at the moment means that Europa League qualification is likely the highest we could ever hope for. Based on our recent games against Arsenal and Spurs, it shows that were we to qualify for the CL we wouldn't be embarrassed by the level of competition and could even take a few scalps from the 3rd/4th place Serie A/La Liga teams perhaps, but there is still a gap in quality between ourselves and the very top teams (e.g. Barca, City, Juve, and yes, Ajax), which none of the players we currently have, and very, very few we are ever likely to be able to attain, will enable us to bridge.

The top youngsters will still most likely go to CL clubs ahead of us, and the very top CL clubs will also be less likely to pay mega-bucks for players that are not already CL proven (unlike this current Ajax team now).

 

You can get paper instead of plastic ones these days.

 

Before we can 'do an Ajax', I suspect that there are one of two of our squad who need to play with a bit more Vim first...

 

Kane was on our books & Sterling grew up in our backyard (Wembley).

Ajax will indeed have first dibs on their equivalents & we won’t.

We have to cast our gaze east & north for talent but please not Bedfordshire.

 

Javi will have to go Ariel.

 

Javi is so good that he'll manage that in a Flash.