Ajax Embraces Míchel's Style as They Reach Cruising Speed

Ajax are starting to look unmistakably like a Míchel team. Not just in the scorelines, but in the way they suffocate opponents.

Spanish daily Mundo Deportivo has taken notice. The Catalan paper, rarely prone to overstatement about Dutch football, described Ajax as a side that “have reached their cruising speed” and backed them to mount a serious title challenge.

That verdict dropped the morning after a ruthless 5-1 dismantling of Willem II. The numbers from Amsterdam were as one-sided as the mood in the stands: 70 per cent possession, 33 shots, and a team that refused to ease off even with the game long since decided.

Ajax were already 2-0 up at half-time, firmly in control. Many sides would have managed the game from there. Míchel’s did the opposite. They kept the tempo high, kept pressing, and kept looking for goals. The scoreboard – and the Spanish press – approved.

Mundo Deportivo pointed to a broader pattern rather than a single explosive night. Across their last four league matches, Ajax have been piling up goals: four against Telstar, one against PSV, then five against Fortuna Sittard and another five versus Willem II.

Only PSV have managed to stop the surge, and even then, the 3-1 defeat comes with an asterisk in the Spanish analysis. The newspaper argued Míchel’s side deserved more from that match, hinting that the performance level, not the result, told the real story.

Strip it back to the basics and the form is blunt: three wins from those four games, nine points collected, 14 goals scored. For a project only a few months old, that is the kind of return that turns curiosity into expectation.

Mundo Deportivo went further, noting how this Ajax side already plays as if it has been together for years. The combinations, the pressing structure, the confidence in possession – all of it, they say, bears the clear imprint of Míchel’s work in a remarkably short period.

It is not just the attackers drawing praise. Defender Youri Baas earned a specific mention for his performances at the heart of the Amsterdam back line, a nod to the balance emerging between Ajax’s aggressive front-foot football and a defence beginning to look more secure.

The question now is not whether Míchel has changed Ajax, but how far this new version can carry them in the title race.