Battered and effective Ajax regains fifth place with a difficult victory over PEC

NOS Football•yesterday, 2:11 PM•Amended yesterday, 9:50 PM

View the summary of PEC Zwolle – Ajax

Ajax has regained fifth place in the Premier League. The badly damaged team won the away match against PEC Zwolle with difficulty with 1-3.

It would not be a piece of cake on Easter Sunday, as the Amsterdam supporters agreed prior to the match. Ajax coach John van ‘t Schip had to miss Brian Brobbey, Jordan Henderson, Steven Berghuis and Josip Sutalo with injuries. In addition, Ahmetcan Kaplan was suspended.

On the other hand, there was the positive news that captain Steven Bergwijn returned to the starting line-up after an injury.

But it was not Bergwijn who helped Ajax on its way in Zwolle, it was the Icelander Kristian Hlynsson. He converted a sensitive ball from Benjamin Tahirovic.

View the reactions after the PEC Zwolle-Ajax here:

Within half an hour, the team from Amsterdam, which was in poor form, seemed to decide the game. On a pass from Mika Godts, Chuba Akpom was able to score the 0-2 goal via a PEC leg. It was the eighth goal of the season for Brobbey’s replacement.

Zwolle did not want to give up immediately and had enormous opportunities to score a goal. Lennart Thy, Bram van Polen and Odysseus Velanas had the 1-2 on their shoe, but all failed spectacularly face to face with Ajax goalkeeper Ramaj.

The latter in particular will lose sleep when he sees how much space his fellow attacker Thy had, but Velanas did not hand over the ball.

Ajax hardly played any more football in the second half and the 1-2 score was inevitable. Light-footed as he is, Filip Krastev dribbled completely through the Ajax defense and the Bulgarian was then able to finish coolly. This brought the tension back into the match.

John van ‘t Schip’s team seemed to have completely lost it and escaped the equalizer. Diant Ramaj had to let go of Thy’s effort and saw Silvester van der Water make it 2-2, but to his great relief the flag went up for offside.

The relief became even greater when suddenly a third Ajax goal was in the net. Anton Gaaei was sent off on the right side, bordering offside, and was able to serve the free-standing Akpom: 1-3. It was only the fifth shot between the posts of the effective Amsterdam team

Afterwards, a goal from PEC player Van Polen was also disallowed for offside. And so, unlike on Easter Sunday 2014, Ajax now managed to beat PEC Zwolle. A repeat of the cup final at the time, a 5-1 win for Zwolle, was not possible for the home team today.