EREDIVISE
Former Chivas coach comes to Ajax’s rescue
John van ‘t Schip has been chosen by the Amsterdam club as a replacement for Maurice Steijn who was sacked a week ago.
The most decorated club in Dutch football are embroiled in a major crisis as 36 time champion Ajax Amsterdam prop up the Eredivisie table following a 5-2 away defeat at the hands of PSV Eindhoven.
Their poor start to the campaign led to the dismissal of Maurice Steijn and after a week of searching for a new head coach, an interim replacement has been found in the shape of former Chivas manager John van’t Ship.
The multi lingual Canadian born coach is a former Ajax player and has previously held roles with the Amsterdam in both interim and assistant capacities. The task at hand for the 59-year-old is considerable as Ajax languish in the table and are also struggling in their Europa League group with just two points in their opening three matches.
The sliver of good news for Ajax is that they have two games in hand in the the league and would advance to mid table with two wins.
Van’t Ship’s spell with Chivas was disappointing and short lived after the Dutchman was with Guadalajara in 2012 and recommended to the board by Johan Cruyff who was working with the Liga MX club at the time.
Speaking after the appointment, Van‘t Schip stated: “I’m very happy that the deal is done and I’m eager to start at the club where it once all began for me. The conversations with all people involved resulted in a great feeling for me. Ajax needs to find the way up again and I’m happy to help in that matter.”