Ajax won in the Eredivisie with a big difference from sc Heerenveen on Sunday. Erik ten Hag’s team put the visitors from Friesland behind with relatively little effort in the first half and finished the job after the break: 5-1. In both the first and the second half, the VAR had to be involved in awarding two penalties to Ajax, together with Björn Kuipers. The second penalty kick in the Johan Cruijff ArenA was cashed in by Davy Klaassen, who made his return to Ajax as a basic force.

Ajax got off to an excellent start and took the lead early on. Dusan Tadic was given plenty of room from the left to put the ball ready for his right and curled the leather in the far corner behind the hopeless Erwin Mulder: 1-0. Despite the early goal against Johnny Jansen’s team, however, had a good chance of the equalizer. After a misunderstanding between Mohammed Kudus and Daley Blind, Henk Veerman got the ball tailor-made from Joey Veerman, but André Onana reacted well to his header.

The Ten Hag team came to 2-0 thanks to a striking penalty kick. A cross from Tadic from the left was blocked by Sherel Floranus on the edge of the penalty area. Kuipers initially pointed to the corner flag, after three minutes the VAR and the referee came to the conclusion that Ajax deserved a penalty. Tadic fired in the ball: 2-0. A hard blow for Heerenveen, which apart from Tadic’s 1-0 had actually not given away a chance and almost scored himself via Veerman.

Kudus, however, already closed the game ten minutes before half time. The midfielder shot from the crowd after a good combination at Ajax and that meant his first in the service of the team from Amsterdam: 3-0. Initially it was quite sluggish in the second half. Ajax already looked head-on at the Champions League meeting with Liverpool and saved energy, while Heerenveen failed to bring the tension back.

Ten Hag chose to take Tadic and Noussair Mazraoui to the side, in favor of Antony and the debuting Sean Klaiber. Antony immediately made himself heard by shooting over after a good combination with Klaassen, but a lightning-fast counter then led to the 3-1. Ajax’s defense was completely wrong and Henk Veerman signed on a pass from Mitchell van Bergen for the connection goal of the Frisians. However, it turned out to be only a brief revival of the Northerners.

Twenty minutes before time, Lassina Traoré was detained by Rodney Kongolo. The VAR did not dare after viewing the images and eventually Kuipers went back to the screen himself. The referee pointed to the spot where Klaassen shot the ball hard and high behind Mulder: 4-1. In the final minutes, Antony went into the depth on a pass from Kudus and shot the ball with the left into the far corner: 5-1. Ajax goes through the victory together with Vitesse, which simultaneously won 0-2 at ADO Den Haag, for the time being shared in the lead in the Eredivisie. Heerenveen drops two places and is now sixth.