Ajax fire out five goal warning
Frank de Boer’s side have won 11 out of 13 league matches but like Celtic have still to record a win in the Europa League.
Second bottom Cambuur, with seven draws and six defeats in the league, offered little resistance in the Amsterdam Arena with Ajax leading 4-1 at the break.
After the match de Boer said: “They played very compact. We had more opportunities to attack but all in it was a reasonable result.
“We had a lot of pressure in the second half and should have scored more but on Thursday Celtic will be tougher opponents.”
Last week Ajax had to deal with Johan Cruyff quitting his executive role at the club after disagreeing with the direction that the club was moving in.
More than ever the Amsterdam side are having to rely on their Academy to produce players with de Boer comfortable with that strategy.
“We’ve won four championships in the last five years with between sixty and seventy per cent of our players from our own academy,” he explained. “At times we’ve refreshed the selection with a new acquisition, but often with a youth player as well.
“We need to keep the bar high for youth players to enter. Instead of needing two years to ripen, that they can almost directly be fit enough for the first team.
“It’s the only way that Dutch football can survive. We must accept that we need to make do with young guys. That results in fluctuations in the performances. One time it will be amazing, and the next time it will be bad.
“There are still people who think that we can still win the Champions League. That’s very difficult, because we can’t compete with the big competitions anymore. We can’t just fill a hole in our selection with a player who costs sixty million.”