Ajax Amsterdam’s hopes of breaking their duck in this season’s Champions League and picking up their first points away at Qarabag on Wednesday have been hit by injury to key players.
Four-time European champions Ajax have lost all five of their group matches in this season’s campaign and sit bottom of the 36-team standings but would have been hoping to get something out of their away clash against the Azerbaijan champions.
Acting coach Fred Grim, who has taken charge until the end of the year after last month’s sacking of John Heitinga, said international striker Wout Weghorst was out until next month while he had left behind two regulars, centre back Josip Sutalo and attacker Kenneth Taylor.
Weghorst suffered an ankle injury at the weekend and it means Kasper Dolberg might again be pressed into service, like he was in Saturday’s win at Fortuna Sittard, despite the club wanting to gradually build up the Danish striker’s resilience after an abdominal wall injury.
"He played more minutes than we actually think is right. Necessity knows no law," Grim told Tuesday’s pre-match press conference.
Qualifying for the playoffs has become virtually impossible for Ajax and they might be tempted to rest other players in midweek and keep them fresh for Sunday’s clash against arch-rivals Feyenoord, who are eight points above Ajax in the Dutch league.
Grim, however, said of Wednesday’s game against Qarabag that they were "going for the win and want to get back on track".
"As a coach, you always look at the schedule and the players' workload, but we want to perform well in every match. We have a group that puts a lot of energy into training. The boys want to show they belong in the starting line-up. We'll see how the match goes, but we want to win."
Sutalo and Taylor might yet be fielded on Sunday. “They stayed behind in Amsterdam. Now we have to wait and see if it's feasible to get them back in the squad before the weekend," Grim added.
Ajax have won their last two Dutch league outings after a run of four successive defeats in all competitions, which included home losses in the Champions League to both Galatasaray and Benfica.