Former Feyenoord favourite Igor Paixão piled on the agony for Ajax as the Amsterdam club slumped to a 4-0 defeat in Marseille in their second Champions League outing.

The Brazilian sprung Ajax’s offside trap on the halfway line and skipped clear of the defence before firing a low shot to the left of the motionless Vitezslav Jaros to open the scoring in the sixth minute.

Six minutes later Paixão punished Ajax again when Davy Klaassen lost the ball outside his own penalty area. Arthur Vermeeren found his team-mate with a simple pass and the unmarked striker beat Jaros with a venomous first-time shot from outside the area.

And it got worse for Ajax when more sloppy defending allowed Pierre-Emerick Aubemayang to play in Mason Greenwood, who rolled the ball into the net to make it 3-0 after just 25 minutes.

Coach John Heitinga had been forced to make an early change when Youri Regeer limped off with a hamstring injury two minutes before the third goal.

Heitinga reshuffled his team at half-time, bringing on Oliver Edvardsen and Timothy Weah for Steven Berghuis and Bilal Nadir.

But he was unable to stem the tide as Aubemayang added a fourth from a counter-attacking move seven minutes into the second half.

Heitinga under pressure

The result, folliowing Ajax’s 2-0 home defeat to Internazionale on the opening day, leaves the club with a mountain to climb to survive the group stage and will add to mounting speculation about Heitinga’s future.

The coach, who was appointed following the departure of Francesco Farioli at the end of last season, waved away questions about his position ahead of Tuesday’s game.

“I’m fully focused on the squad, the process and the development of the team,” he said. “I can’t do much more.”

Ajax’s next match is away to English Premier League side Chelsea, who beat their former coach José Mourinho’s new club Benfica 1-0, on October 22.