Brian Brobbey thinks that Ajax is failing in the pressure. On Thursday evening, the team from Amsterdam suffered a painful 0-1 loss in the play-off match with Ludogorets for the group stage of the Europa League, which Ajax did reach despite the defeat. Among other things, there was a failure in putting pressure, something that Carlos Forbs has not yet mastered, according to Brobbey.
After a disappointing first half and a 0-0 halftime score, trainer Maurice Steijn hoped to force a breakthrough with the introduction of Davy Klaassen, but that failed to materialise. After an hour of play, Matías Tissera even scored the only goal of the match on behalf of Ludogorets. “I think it was a difficult match in which the opponent played very compactly”, Brobbey concludes afterwards. “I think we started pretty well in the first ten minutes, but then it completely went downhill. It just wasn’t good enough”
“It didn’t go the way we wanted to put pressure on either,” continues the Ajax striker. “We just have to keep to the agreements and then things will probably get better. We wanted to put pressure on the front three, but that didn’t always happen. I often put pressure together with Stevie (Bergwijn, ed.). Forbs is new and he has yet to learn. It’s also inconvenient. The new players don’t really know how the system works yet and we have to help them with that. At some point it will come naturally.”
The fact that Ajax has been busy on the transfer market should not affect the game, says Brobbey. “There are many new faces, but they are probably all good players, otherwise Ajax would not have attracted them. We just need to fill our team and we do, competition everywhere. If you saw what we had for selection two years ago… that was a top selection. Many players have also left, so we now have to get used to the new players, to the system,” said the center forward.