Ajax takes the top spot after putting 7 past Excelsior; Vitesse gets first win under Cocu

Ajax is now top of the Eredivisie table. The Amsterdammers took over the top spot from AZ Alkmaar after they beat Excelsior 7-1 in the Johan Cruijff arena on Sunday evening. AZ had lost to Feyenoord earlier on Sunday afternoon.

Ajax opened the scoring after 15 minutes as Jorge Sanchez scored his first goal for the club. Goals for Steven Berghuis, Brian Brobbey (2x), Dusan Tadic, Steven Bergwijn, and Mohammed Kudus followed before Excelsior got a consolation via Nikolas Agrafiotis. Excelsior is now winless in their last four games after a promising start, leaving them in 12th position.

Vitesse finally picked up their first victory under Philip Cocu at the third attempt on Saturday. The club from Arnhem beat Cambuur 0-3 in Leeuwaarden. The goals were scored by Ryan Flamingo, Kacper Kozlowski, and Sondre Tronstad.

However, Cocu was hesitant to praise his side too much after the match. “We have only just begun to play this way with our style, so we are still searching. We are not there yet; quite a few things need to be better”, he told ESPN.

Vitesse climbed over FC Groningen with the victory, who dropped to a play-off relegation spot having lost 3-0 to FC Twente. The Groningers have eight points from 10 games and showed no signs of improving at the Grolsch Veste on Sunday. Despite making it to halftime with the scores even at 0-0, Frank Wormuth’s side threw it away in the second half, conceding after only three minutes to Virgil Misidjan; Joshua Brenet and Ricky van Wolfswinkel scored Twente’s remaining goals.

NEC Nijmegen’s remarkable record of seven draws in a row ended on Sunday, but not in the way they would have hoped. Sparta Rotterdam defeated the Nijmegen side 2-0 with goals from Dirk Abels and Jonathan de Guzman. Sparta has made their best start to a season in 31 years under Maurice Steijn and is currently in sixth.