Player of the Weekend…

As the season draws to a close, opportunities to be a match-winning hero get fewer and fewer.

However, if you are making a key contribution to winning football matches at this point in the football calendar, the chances are that there will be some kind of reward. This is true of Ajax’s title chasers.

It has been a remarkable season for the Dutch club, as they re-established themselves at Europe’s top table, cruelly missing out on a Champions League final by a matter of seconds. And their efforts have been spread across the domestic season, too, as a Dutch Cup has already been won and now, thanks to this weekend, the league title is all but theirs.

The 4-1 win over FC Utrecht wasn’t always as comfortable as it sounds for Ajax, having gone one-nil down very early on. However, the class of the Amsterdam side shone through with the playmaking talents of Dusan Tadic, Frenkie De Jong and, our Player of the Weekend, Hakim Ziyech.

The Morrocan international was his usual classy self and his most cultured of left feet was able to run this game. Even in the high-pressure moments, Ziyech remained calm and composed, never wasting the ball or playing too directly. It wasn’t a game in which he scored, nor did he assist, but his dominating display was one of the key reasons as to why Ajax stayed on top of their opponent for so long.

It’s been like this all season for Ziyech and in many ways, this weekend’s performance summed up his campaign. A worthy winner of our Player of the Weekend title and surely the Eredivisie title, too.

(image by Soccrates)