Frank De Boer wants Ajax to play like Arsenal

Ajax manager Frank de Boer wants his team to play the high pressing and passing football like Arsenal that led them to a 2-0 win over Monaco at the Stade Louis II stadium on Tuesday.

The Gunners harried the French defence and breached it twice even though it was not quite enough to overturn the 3-1 deficit they were trailing from the first leg of the game at the Emirates.

Ajax have a similar model to Arsenal with respect to player recruitment, where they do not spend an unusually huge amount of money on established stars and prefer to nurture their own academy talent and help them realise their potentials.

The Gunners, who were struggling to compete in the financial department with Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United, have been given some leeway in the past couple of years with an increase in their commercial revenue through which they have bought players like Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to end their nine-year run without any trophy and won the FA Cup last year.

The Dutchman compared Arsenal's goals to that in futsal, with the high tempo passing movement making it difficult for the opposition to adjust in time.

"The way they played against Monaco is the way we would like to play as well. High pressure, get the ball back very quickly. I really love the way Arsenal play. When I look at their goals, it sometimes looks like futsal. Passing, moving and always at a high tempo," De Boer said.

The Dutch club face elimination themselves against Dnipro whom they host at the Amsterdam Arena in a round of 16 tie of the Europa League. The Eredivisie trail the first leg by a goal to nil and need their best game to progress into the quarter finals.

"I expect Dnipro to sit back and wait for us to attack. You could see that in the first match as well. We have to be patient, we can't afford to make mistakes. I hope this is not the 'game of the year' for us, because I want to go through and play in another 'game of the year'," he concluded.