Kenneth Perez thinks John van ‘t Schip’s tactical conversion halfway through the match against Brighton & Hove Albion (0-2 loss) was a failure. Ajax’s coach brought in Kenneth Taylor in favor of Chuba Akpom to put more pressure on the opponent, but Brighton simply played their way out of it.
“Using an extra attacker is only useful if you are going to use the early cross, because you then have at least two people in the opposing box,” Perez concludes in the studio of ESPN after the Europa League match in the Johan Cruijff ArenA.
“There is no point in continuing to play football. Afterwards it turned out to be a very poor change. The idea that Ajax probably had did not come true. They probably wanted to tighten it up more at the back at Brighton, but the opposite happened.”
Perez thought that Brighton had no trouble at all with the increased pressure from Ajax and the Premier League club even benefited from the conversion according to the analyst. “With one pass from the back through Ajax’s front line, Brighton immediately created large spaces in midfield.”
“If it’s close, a 0-1 halftime score, then you don’t have to start playing so offensively right away, do you?” Karim El Ahmadi also thinks so: “That’s right, you’re still in the game.”
Ajax was defeated almost immediately, as Simon Adingra put Brighton at 0-2 shortly after half-time. “It may have been correct with the magnets on the board, but in practice you saw that so much space was created for Brighton in midfield,” Perez concludes. “You saw it immediately at the 0-2.”
Response from John van ‘t Schip
“By substituting Taylor, Hlynsson was able to drop a line,” Van ‘t Schip explained his substitution immediately after the match. “With the introduction of Akpom we were able to play with two real strikers.”
“We had to take a bit of a risk because we were behind,” Van ‘t Schip concludes. “We then took a little more risk by bringing in Mikautadze (for Devyne Rensch, ed.). With that adjustment we of course became a little less disciplined and Brighton could still become dangerous.”