Ajax to face Hamburg, Villa

Ok, so I'm going to pull a Sarah Palin here and choose not to comment on the Heerenveen match, but rather I'd like to talk about the UEFA Cup. The cup draw was this morning and Ajax have been placed in Group F along with Hamburg, Slavia Prague, Aston Villa and Slovakian side MSK Zilina. All in all, its a tougher draw for Ajax than at first glance, Hamburg was one of less intimidating Pot 1 teams that Ajax could have been grouped with, but a quick glace at the Bundesliga table shows them sitting on top. Aston Villa, also not exactly an intimidating English side, but they currently sit in fifth place, level on points with Arsenal. And then there is our old nemesis Slavia Prague, and the mystery team MSK Zilina. Its tough to say how I feel about this draw, I think if Ajax had performed a little better last weekend and could show a little more consistency I'd feel more confident, but confidence is hard to find these days for Ajax fans. The injury bug has started to hit the team pretty hard, Marco is fuming mad about the way his team is playing, and there are some big games coming up that Ajax has to find a way to win. Next up, a #1 vs #10 Eredivisie match up on Saturday...unfortunately Groningen is in first and Ajax is tenth.