Ajax maintained their six-point lead in the Eredivisie with a 3-1 win over Groningen, while PSV strengthened their claim on second place by beating Fortuna Sittard by the same scoreline.

It took just five minutes for Ryan Gravenberch to open the scoring in Amsterdam as he lashed in Dusan Tadic’s pull-back from the goal line. Sebastian Haller added a second 10 minutes after half-time after David Neres sprung the offside trap, before Tadic converted a late penalty at the second attempt.

PSV owed their away win to in-form striker Eran Zahavi. The Israeli international scored twice in the first half, tucking away passes by Denzel Dumfries and Philippe Max, and narrowly missed two other good chances.

George Cox brought the Limburgers back into the game with a shot from a tight angle on 69 minutes before substitute Noni Madueke, making his first appearance for a month, hit a sweet strike into the top corner to seal the points.

AZ Alkmaar’s hopes of catching PSV were dealt a blow as they went down 2-1 to Vitesse in Arnhem. The cup finalists were missing Riecheldy Bazoer for disciplinary reasons and had to survive an anxious last 10 minutes after Bazoer’s replacement, Enzo Cornelisse, was sent off for hauling down Myron Boadu.

Feyenoord ended a three-match winless streak in emphatic fashion as they overpowered VVV Venlo, who were missing the league’s top scorer Giorgios Giakoumakis through injury. Dick Advocaat’s side scored three goals in each half, with Steven Berghuis’s curling shot for the fifth the pick of the bunch.

At the bottom of the table Emmen snatched a draw at home to Sparta as Michael de Leeuw scored an injury-time penalty to close the gap on ADO Den Haag to two points. ADO went down 3-0 in Heerenveen, while 16th-placed Willem II claimed a point in Enschede with a late equaliser by Vangelis Pavlidis.

Heracles Almelo also claimed a last-gasp win to spoil Bert Konterman’s first game in charge of PEC Zwolle. Luca de la Torre

RKC Waalwijk were left gnashing their teeth at the injury-time penalty that gave Utrecht a 2-1 win in Brabant. Referee Sander van der Eijk admitted after the game that he had been wrong to penalise Ahmed Touba for a push on Utrecht’s Gyrano Kerk.

Results

Friday

Emmen 1-1 Sparta

Saturday

Feyenoord 6-0 VVV Venlo

Heerenveen 3-0 ADO Den Haag

RKC Waalwijk 1-2 Utrecht

Twente Enschede 1-1 Willem II Tilburg

Sunday

Ajax 3-1 Groningen

Fortuna Sittard 1-3 PSV Eindhoven

Heracles 2-1 PEC Zwolle

Vitesse Arnhem 2-1 AZ Alkmaar