With AZ beaten by Vitesse Arnhem yesterday, the Amsterdam club needed to win at the Philips Stadion to keep alive their faint hopes of catching the league leaders.

But they were outplayed by a PSV side battling for a top-four finish, meaning AZ can no longer be caught in the standings with three matches remaining.

AZ suffered only their third defeat of the season with a 2-1 reverse at home to Vitesse yesterday, but maintained their 11-point lead over FC Twente who were also beaten at Feyenoord.

That left Ajax, who began the day 12 points behind the leaders, as the only team able to close the gap on the summit but they found themselves trailing to PSV after 22 minutes thanks to Edison Mendez's strike.

The pressure looked to be too much for the visitors, who conceded further goals to Ibrahim Afellay (31) and Nordin Amrabat (41) before Luis Suarez finally got Ajax on the scoresheet two minutes before the interval.

Battles between PSV and Ajax are rarely disappointing, and this one lived up to the hype as the Eindhoven club scored a fourth goal through Jason Culina in the 57th minute.

Balazs Dzsudzsak (66) then made it 5-1, and although Miralem Sulejmani pulled a goal back 10 minutes later, Otman Bakkal added another in stoppage time to round off the emphatic win and hand AZ their first league title since the 1980-81 campaign.

PSV, meanwhile, climb to fourth and the final automatic Europa League spot on the back of their success and Heerenveen's 2-1 loss at FC Utrecht.

Despite taking the lead through Paulo Henrique after three minutes, Heerenveen were pegged back by Michael Silberbauer's equaliser four minutes later.

The match appeared to be heading for a draw, but a late challenge from Darryl Janmaat on Loic Loval saw the former dismissed and Utrecht awarded a penalty.

And Gregor van Dijk made no mistakes from the spot to steal the win which sees Heerenveen slip to fifth.

At the other end of the table, FC Volendam climbed off the foot with a 3-0 victory over Sparta Rotterdam.

Rowin van Zaanen (33), Paul De Lange (56 penalty) and Gerson Sheotahul (87) scored for the hosts, while Sparta had Yuri Rose sent off in the final minutes.

De Graafschap slip to the foot of the standings, while ADO Den Haag remain just one point above the bottom three after they threw away a three-goal lead against Willem II.

Two goals from Karim Soltani (5 and 28), plus a Richard Knopper striker (52), looked to have earned ADO a welcome win.

But three goals in six second-half minutes from Mohamed Messoudi (penalty), Frank Demouge and George Mourad earned Willem II an unlikely 3-3 draw.