No pandemonium this time for Dier as he is held by ex-Fulham defender-turned-coach in Amsterdam

By Alessandro Schiavone in Amsterdam

AFC Ajax 2-2 AS Monaco

Goals: Taylor 29' (Ajax), Biereth 34' (Monaco) , Minamino 65' (Monaco), Traoré 87' Ajax)

There was no happy ending this time on Eric Dier's return to Amsterdam as John Heitinga's spirited Ajax side snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat against AS Monaco through Bertrand Traoré.

Six years on from Lucas Moura's epic hat-trick that saw Tottenham Hotspur seal a place in the Champions League final after overturning a 2-0 deficit, Dier came within a whisker of being dealt a taste of his own medicine.

But Chelsea flop Traoré', whose strike may have avoided defeat, missed back-to-back chances to win it late on to leave the Ajax fans with a bittersweet taste in their mouth heading for the Bijlmer Arena metro station.

Kenneth Taylor gave the Amsterdammers the lead against the run of play seconds before the half-hour mark after playing a one-two with Davy Klaassen.

Prior to that, ex-Arsenal acadamy graduate Folarin Balogun failed to find the back of the net after being slipped in on goal by Aleksandr Golovin.

Yet if took Monaco only five minutes to be back on terms through a tap-in from Danish striking sensation Mika Biereth.

Monaco were in command as they played cat and mouse with Ajax either side of half-time. Yet they failed to deliver into practice what they knew in theory.

Their high-octane pressing game and pacy transition style failed to yield the goods until the 65th minute when Takumi Minamino got on the end of Teze's delivery.

There was an acceptance among the Ajax fan base that this wasn't their day again. And that days after being on the end of a 3-0 mauling in Como. Their confidence looked to take another hit.

And Traoré's late leveller takes nothing away from the fact that this club is still in transition and in for a complicated campaign unless they add some much-needed star quality to their ranks.

It goes without saying that a win would have certainly papered over the tracks.

Failure to wrap up the Eredivisie title despite a commanding lead in spring needs time to move on from.

And one week to go before kicking off their Eredivisie campaign against Telstar, Heitinga could do with at least one centre-back.

Borussia Mönchengladbach's Ko Itakura is in talks with the four-time European Cup winners.

And his arrival would be manna from heaven for the former Fulham defender who knows a thing or two about rocksolid defending having been a respectable no-nonsense centre-back himself back in the day.

While Dier, who was an unused substitute on that famous night, has known no such pandemonium this time around.