Goal differential padded in Doetinchem

Wow, 6-0.....I remember when scorelines like this used to be the norm rather than a once in a while occurrence. We all know how important the goal differential can be at the end of the season, and Sunday's win over De Graafschap definitely helped pad that crucial statistic. One match left before the 3 week winter break, Den Haag at home on Sunday. AZ plays at home to NEC, certainly not a automatic win for them, which means that Ajax could finish up the first half of the season tied for first place. PSV and Twente play each other this weekend, which means one or both of those two teams will fall further off the pace as well.

So whats the impression of van Basten's first half of the season? Not too bad in my opinion. He has managed to get most of the new players acclimated to playing with each other, and has manged to brush off the departure of the teams most visible and dominant player with little more than a shrug. Not only are the big off season transfer players starting to play well (Sulejmani, Cvitanich), but unheralded newcomers like Eyong Enoh and 'unwanted' players like Leonardo are playing well and have made major contributions at critical moments this season. And all of this has taken place while Ajax has gone through one of the most injury plagued seasons in a long time. Not everything has been perfect, (bad losses at Heerenveen, Tilburg, and Volendam...), but the team has always managed to bounce back pretty well from each loss. Hell, Ajax is even doing well in Europe, which is much more than I can say for our friends at PSV or Feyenoord. Speaking of Feyenoord, as much as like to watch them suffer, its scary to think how quickly and easily this all seems to be happening to them. I ALMOST feel bad for them, but not quite. Same goes for PSV, especially with their awful European performances. I always root for the Eredivise in Europe, and things are not looking good. Ajax, Twente and NEC need to continue to play well in the UEFA Cup, or pretty soon the Holland is going to start to fall behind smaller countries/leagues like the Portuguese Liga and Greek Super League in not only peoples minds but more importantly, the UEFA coefficient.

Well, I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday, and I hope I get the away jersey I asked for this year :)

Cheers!