Foreign media full of surprise: ‘Ajax is on fire, but there are no firefighters to put it out’ | Dutch football

“Relegation threatens Ajax,” writes the Spanish newspaper ASH about the Amsterdam team who currently hold only FC Volendam below them in the rankings. ‘This is the deepest crisis in the entire club history of the legendary Amsterdammers. The ghost of relegation hangs over the Johan Cruijff Arena, something they have never known in Amsterdam. A devastating fire has broken out at Ajax, but there are no firefighters to extinguish the fire.’

“Ajax will have to work very hard to avoid a season that results in a battle against relegation,” the Spanish newspaper also wrote. Sport.‘Ajax cannot get out of the problems and neither can Dutch football when it comes to the problems in the stands, after a match that was interrupted twice,” adds Marca added, referring to the fact that the match was stopped twice by cups thrown onto the field. “The title is out of reach and the places for the Champions League tickets are also almost impossible.”

The French L’Équipe sees only one option for the latter problem: ‘Ajax, which is in crisis, will travel to Brighton on Thursday for the third round of the group stage of the Europa League. Because they can no longer win the title, winning the Europa League seems to be the only solution to be active in the Champions League next year.’

‘Verrücktes 4-3’, the German headline reads Kicker. In other words: crazy 4-3. ‘As a result, Ajax slides into the direct relegation zone.’ The German colleagues from Sports1 see that Ajax has ended up in complete chaos. ‘Ajax is falling further and further away. A historic disaster is looming for the Dutch top club, which has only finished outside the top six once in 67 years of competition history and that was 58 years ago.’

“No fanfare,” headlines TheSun. ‘The Dutch giants have never been relegated from the Premier League, but are now in seventeenth place after seven games.’ Something that The Daily Mail succinctly summarized: ‘Disastrous start, things go from bad to worse at Ajax.’

The southern neighbors also agree with the latter: ‘Crisis complete at Ajax: record champion in relegation spot after fiasco against Red Lantern’, reads the headline of Sporza, which wonders whether the position of coach Maurice Steijn is still tenable. ‘Will he pay the bill later? After seven rounds, the numbers turn blood red: with one win and four defeats, proud Ajax is actually in a direct relegation spot. Against last-place Utrecht, the Dutch record champion reached yet another low point this season. Due to yet another failure, the club drops to a relegation place. Even with two catch-up games in hand, that is almost impossible to defend.’

‘Seventeenth after an insane 4-3 defeat. The contrast could not be greater with the Ajax of a few years ago, which dominated in the Netherlands and showed great things in Europe. Ouch… The chalice must be emptied to the bottom. No coach would survive this, right?’, he asks The last news wondering and also The newspapaer thinks that Steijn’s position has become untenable: ‘Ai ai, Ajax… Steijn should now really fear for his job. And next week the Amsterdam team has to go to competition leader PSV. If only that works out…’

‘Oh yes’, that is also the conclusion The last news. ‘Ajax is facing a scary week. Thursday’s Europa League against Brighton & Hove Albion, Sunday’s away match against leader PSV. Just stand there, in this form.’