It is a careworn Ajax who will host Celtic in the Amsterdam Arena.

The Dutch champions ought to be self-assured in their own stadium, but the team has yet to build any momentum this season and the visit of Neil Lennon's side is the pressure point of their Champions League campaign. In a sense, it is the same for both sides, because a Celtic victory would provide a strong platform for qualifying from the group stages for a second successive year. It is a fixture that prompts historical reflections, not least on the traditions of the two clubs, but it is contemporary issues that make it such an intriguing prospect.

Frank de Boer admits that his side must win tomorrow night. Players can rise to the occasion, and the Ajax manager is adamant that his team will not be diminished by the stark context of the game, but it is also a young, inexperienced squad. De Boer and his coaching staff - including Dennis Bergkamp and Wim Jonk - have sought to revive the old principals at Ajax, to develop talented footballers who have technical ability, passing skills, pace, but most of all independence.

Under Louis van Gaal, the approach to training young players became more regimented. A level of quality was maintained, but the graduates tended to lack the spark of invention. Having been schooled in that environment, De Boer and his coaches set about restoring it, they want players to rise through the ranks with personality as well as technical expertise. There is an idealism to their work, but also pragmatism. Like other sides outwith the top tier of European football, or those not bankrolled by benefactors, Ajax have to sell to survive.

That routine is an aspect of the club that has to be managed. Of last season's title winners, De Boer lost Christian Eriksen to Tottenham Hotspur and Toby Alderweireld to Atletico Madrid. He wants to promote young, homegrown players, since that is central to the Ajax character but also the most cost effective way of replenishing talent, but it is also a necessity. At times this season, De Boer must have privately railed against the naivety of his side.

Of the team that lost to Celtic in Glasgow two weeks ago, only Christian Poulsen was older than 24. The centre-back pairing of Joel Veltman, a 21-year-old making his European debut, and Stefano Denswil, a 20-year-old, had barely mustered 10 first-team starts between them. Ajax are a combination of youth and inexperience, but without the star quality that can overcome deficiencies.

Celtic can profit by being bold, at least in their attacking intentions. The likelihood is that Lennon will set his side up to contain the home team but also skewer them on the counter attack. The Scottish champions have their own strategy, which combines scouring under-utilised markets for players who can be developed and sold while trying to promote their own youth prospects. Biram Kayal, who scored at Celtic Park, and James Forrest represent the different sides of the club's approach, and both will figure prominently tomorrow night.

Yet it is mental strength that will influence the outcome. Celtic have battle-hardened players in their squad, whereas Ajax are in the midst of a run of fragile form. The pressure belongs to the home side, as De Boer admitted, and Celtic can capitalise on that psychological weakness. De Boer has tended to structure Ajax's training schedules so that the team's fitness and form are strongest in the last three months of the season, and all of their three consecutive title victories have involved long, winning streaks at the end of the season.

That has allowed them to establish a domestic authority, and nobody at the club will be fretting that the team is sixth in the Eredivise, with only three points separating them from the leaders, AZ Alkmaar. Yet De Boer has identified making progress in Europe as the next phase of the club's development. The loss of key players every summer is a hindrance when the replacements are not always up to the same standard. There is a technical competency to Ajax, and much of their attacking play in the final third in Glasgow was sharp, intuitive and swift, but there was no clinical edge. That, coupled with defensive lapses, left Ajax unable to counter the intensity of Celtic's strong phases.

Tomorrow night's encounter will involve a role reversal, since Ajax will be expected to dominate possession and to be carried by the atmosphere generated by their fans, but Celtic can be wily enough to prevail. Lennon's side showed at Camp Nou last season that they can implement a disciplined, shrewd game-plan, and they are more than capable of taking advantage of the growing neuroses of Ajax. In losing 1-0 to Vitesse last weekend, Ajax dominated much of the game but could not convert their chances and so left themselves vulnerable to their opponents.

These enduring flaws will prey on the players' minds. De Boer is a principled coach, studious and artful, and he may yet inspire his side to rediscover a killer instinct. Mistakes at the back also need to be eradicated, though, and the team is caught between the worth of promoting young players and the consequences. Ajax have to operate in this way, out of necessity but also out of tradition, since their best teams were always formed by developing a generation of world-class footballers. This crop does not live up to that legacy, although the work of De Boer and his coaches is designed to address that.

In the meantime, Celtic can succeed by adding some dare to their approach.