Michel Sanchez has had a mixed start to his time as head coach of Ajax.

Ajax qualified for the UEFA Conference League after beating Vojvodina, Shelbourne FC and FC Sion across two legs, but the away game against Shelbourne FC was underwhelming from an Ajax perspective, and perhaps the first clear sign of issues.

After eight Eredivisie games, Ajax now sit 5th in the table, with 15 points from eight games, and they are currently five points behind league leaders Feyenoord.

Ajax have beaten PEC Zwolle, Telstar, Fortuna Sittard and Willem II, but lost to defending champions PSV Eindhoven 1-3 at the Johan Cruijff ArenA. They also dropped points at home against SC Heerenveen, Excelsior and most recently NEC Nijmegen on Saturday night, drawing all three of those games.

Ajax are now at the start of a very busy period, with seven games scheduled between now and 8 November, after which the international break begins. 

Ajax's next game is against Hajduk Split in the UEFA Conference League, after which they will travel to the north of the Netherlands to face FC Groningen.

In his post-match press conference following the 1-1 draw against NEC Nijmegen, Michel explained why Ajax failed to secure the three points, claiming his team was too passive.

"We had very big chances to win at home. In the last two home games, we didn't convert those chances. Moreover, we lacked fluidity in our play today," Michel explained.

"They were playing very much man-to-man. We couldn't play our way out from under that pressure. We also showed no movement on the pitch with the ball.

"We played far too passively and were basically looking for the open man the whole time. That is very frustrating. Especially because we had 61 per cent possession."

"We only made four hundred passes. That means we didn't have enough movement on the pitch."  

Michel has received criticism following Ajax's somewhat slow start to the season. Jordi Cruijff and the Ajax hierarchy must give him time, though.

Given that Ajax signed more than 10 new first-team players during the summer transfer window, it was to be expected that Ajax would start the season slowly, given that all those new players are adapting to a new club at the same time. Several of those players also arrived very late in the transfer window, meaning they did not do their pre-season with Ajax.

This is also Michel's first season, and while results have been disappointing at times, Ajax are dominating most games, and one of the main issues right now is that they are simply not clinical enough.

The main worry for Michel right now will be the busy schedule that is coming up. So many games mean he will likely not have much time on the training pitch to work with his players to help perfect the system.

The positive is that Ajax have great squad depth. This will allow Michel to rotate his starting lineup without having to worry about a significant drop-off in performance levels. That squad depth will be crucial for Ajax this season in challenging for trophies on multiple fronts.