Ajax Amsterdam are in danger of finishing outside the top two in the Dutch football league for the first time in 13 seasons.
This will mean missing out on the UEFA Champions League next season.
The signs are ominous as they struggle to build a new team in the wake of record sales last year.
Ajax have finished champions seven times and runners-up another five times 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.
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 success.
This has been over the past three title-winning seasons, alongside their run to the UEFA Champions League semi-finals in 2019.
They sold most of their talent and lost 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 Eindhoven second on 65.
Ajax are on 62, facing having to play in the Europa League next season after 13 successive seasons of competing in the UEFA Champions League.
Ajax, four-time European champions, made an eye-watering €216.2 million in transfers in the close season.
This included 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.
Team 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 UEFA Champions League.
In January, they 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 coach 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.”
(Reuters/NAN)
