Ajax cannot have Daley Blind in its Europa League match against BSC Young Boys on Thursday, trainer Erik ten Hag announced at the press conference on Wednesday. The defender still has too much trouble with a knee injury. He had to be replaced with complaints in the break of the cup match with sc Heerenveen (0-3 win) and was therefore missing against FC Groningen on Sunday (3-1 win).
“Apart from André (Onana, ed.), Sébastien (Haller) and Nous (Mazraoui), Daley Blind will also not be there tomorrow. Behind the name of Brian Brobbey is another question mark”, Ten Hag says. Brobbey was missing against Heerenveen and Groningen due to an injury. According to the trainer, Dusan Tadic will probably be in the forefront. “If I say that Brobbey is in doubt, the chances are that Tadic will be in the forefront tomorrow.” Blind’s knee injury is no more serious than expected, according to Ten Hag. “No, I don’t think so. But he hasn’t recovered enough to start tomorrow.”
“It certainly saves a drink, but you always have to make do with the players you have. They are good players and it will be a good team tomorrow”, assures the coach. The absence of Blind could mean that Lisandro Martínez will again play left central in the defense in the Johan Cruijff ArenA. “It could. But if Daley was available, it might have been.”
Young Boys, the leader of Switzerland, is ‘in any case a good team’, according to Ten Hag. “If you manage to take out Bayer Leverkusen, one of the better Bundesliga clubs, and beat it twice, then you have a good squad. It is really a team, a unit, with a really good mentality. They they have a very good command of the ‘vertical’ game: they come straight to the opponent’s goal. It is a robbery with four or five players. They have a lot of speed in the team. It is well organized “, says Ten Hag.