(Reuters) – Ajax Amsterdam are in danger of finishing outside the top two in the Dutch league for the first time in 13 seasons and missing out on the Champions League next season as they struggle to build a new team in the wake of record sales last year.
The club have finished champions seven times and runners-up another five over the last 12 seasons, since ending third behind AZ Alkmaar and Twente Enschede in 2009.
However, after a 3-0 drubbing from PSV Eindhoven on Sunday, Ajax have dropped to third with four league matches left to play.
It could get worse as their next league clash on May 6 is home to AZ, who lie two points behind them in fourth place.
Ajax, who meet PSV again this Sunday in the Dutch Cup final, have paid the price for their own success over the past three title winning seasons and their run to the Champions League semi-final in 2019, selling the bulk of their talent and losing coach Erik ten Hag to Manchester United.
Now it is their arch rivals Feyenoord who are on course to win the league, needing five points from their final four matches.
They have 73 points with PSV second on 65 and Ajax on 62, facing having to play in the Europa League next season after 13 successive season of competing in the Champions League.
POSITIVE BANK BALANCE
Ajax, who are four-time European champions, made an eye-watering 216.2-million euros in transfers in the close season, including almost 155-million alone from Manchester United for Brazilian Antony and defender Lisandro Martinez.
But despite the positive bank balance, the club are in transition struggling to replace the departed talent.
Captain Dusan Tadic said on Sunday he had noticed a decline in the level at training daily and in matches weekly. “We won one top match all season,” in a reference to this month’s Dutch Cup semi-final success at Feyenoord. “We need more quality in the squad.”
They were beaten 6-1 at home by Napoli and 3-0 by Liverpool in the Champions League and in January fired coach Alfred Schreuder after only half a season in charge following a string of seven matches without a win.
John Heitinga stepped in as caretaker for the rest of the season. “It’s been a difficult season, we all realise that,” he said on Sunday.
“We have to be realistic, a lot of quality has gone and a completely new team had to take shape. That takes time. We have to take this year as it is, but look very critically at next season. It’s a gap year, but we can’t have too many gap years at Ajax.”
(This story has been refiled to add a dropped word in paragraph 1)
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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