Ajax are enduring their worst run since the introduction of professional football to the Netherlands in 1954; club are 17th in Eredivisie and sacked Maurice Steijn this week; Hedwiges Maduro has been appointed caretaker, starting with Thursday's trip to Brighton
Thursday 26 October 2023 20:50, UK
Ajax Amsterdam have never experienced a crisis quite like this.
For the four-time European champions, being second in the Eredivisie is cause for consternation: as it was back in late 2017 when Erik ten Hag was appointed to replace Marcel Keizer following their Dutch Cup exit at the hands of Twente Enschede.
Hopes of a domestic double ended before Christmas, and second in the Dutch championship - five points behind PSV Eindhoven - that was deemed a sackable offence.
Ten Hag would restore Ajax in the hearts and minds of footballing purists. The club's DNA ran through his Ajax team, and took them to the heights of a Champions League semi-final in 2019. It took him to Manchester United.
There was a 13-0 win over VVV-Venlo on this very day - October 24 - two years ago. It was Total Football.
What would Johan Cruyff be thinking of the mess that is currently engulfing his ArenA?
The 36-time Dutch champions are now in need of a total overhaul. Director of football Sven Mislintat has been fired, but calls for the board to step down have fallen on deaf ears.
Sunday's 4-3 defeat at Utrecht left the Dutch giants sitting one point off the bottom of the table with just one win from their first seven games.
It was especially damaging given it was against one of the few sides beneath them in the table - made all the more demoralising by the surrendering of a second-half fightback from two goals down to lead 3-2 only to lose in stoppage time.
They do have two games in hand, but this is the club's worst-ever start to a season. It is now four league defeats in a row, the first time that has happened since April 1999 under Jan Wouters.
Ajax have failed to win any of their last eight games in all competitions, losing five. It is the longest run for the club without victory since the start of professional football in the Netherlands, stretching back to 1954.
Unsurprisingly, manager Maurice Steijn has now left with immediate effect after just 11 games in charge. Steijn signed a three-year contract with the club this summer after moving from Sparta Rotterdam, whom he led to a shock sixth-placed finish last season.
Ajax chief executive Jan van Halst said: "We have worked intensely and professionally together over the last few months.
"But the sportive successes and the development of the team were lacking. That is why we decided to sit down together again today.
"This time, Maurice also expressed his concerns on whether he was the right man in the right place. Together, we decided that it would be best to part ways."
Part of the reason why Ajax are playing their worst football since the 1960s is due to a lack of experience when faced with adversity.
Steijn inherited the youngest squad in the Eredivisie, and the numbers suggest they should really be propping up the league. Ajax have five points from seven games, but in terms of Expected Points, their 7.33 is the worst of any of the 18 clubs.
Their fabled well of talent has dried up in recent times, its appeal to the circling sharks from wealthier leagues fading - at least while results remain unimaginably bad.
The business model even for the country's biggest club has, for as long as anyone can remember, been about developing young players before selling them on a few years down the line.
From Cruyff to Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp to Wesley Sneijder through to Frenkie de Jong, players of the highest calibre have honed their skills here and left with the club's blessing.
Andre Onana has been reunited with Ten Hag at United following his time at Inter Milan. As have Antony and Lisandro Martinez. Sebastien Haller joined Borussia Dortmund.
Noussair Mazraoui departed for Bayern Munich, following the gifted Ryan Gravenberch before his subsequent loan to Liverpool this term. The list goes on.
Edwin van der Sar, the club's former goalkeeper, left his position as chief executive over the summer after last season's third-placed finish meant they missed out on a place in the Champions League.
To be the very best of stepping-stone clubs requires a high level of planning - but too many assets have been stripped over the past few seasons without the necessary quality coming through.
Ajax's relatively barren years of the late 1990s and 2000s when they won the Eredivisie only twice in 12 years was in part due to them becoming a victim of their own success and for there being no contingency plan. The fear among supporters is that those dark days are returning.
It is not just on the field that Ajax are attracting attention for the all the wrong reasons.
In September against Feyenoord in De Klassieker - the Netherlands' most historic league fixture - things turned ugly.
Trailing 3-0, a section of fans threw fireworks and other pyrotechnic materials onto the pitch, causing the game to be stopped twice.
Others then tried to break into the stadium's main entrance before police got the situation under control.
Feyenoord players and staff were kept in the away dressing room as it was too unsafe for them to leave.
With Van Halst blasting the club's supporters for vandalising their own ground, it was hard to think Ajax could stoop any lower.
But the loss at Utrecht was also temporarily suspended late on. Their problems are brought into sharper focus for an English audience this week.
Hedwiges Maduro has been appointed in caretaker charge of the club, starting with Thursday's trip to Brighton in the Europa League.
The chances are, things are going to get worse for Ajax before they get any better. After the trip to the Amex, it is PSV up next for Maduro back in the Eredivisie - a side that are yet to drop a point in the league this season.
