Mike Verweij does not understand why Ajax has not attempted to take over Micky van de Ven from FC Volendam. The twenty-year-old defender is coveted by Olympique Marseille, which, according to previous reports from The Telegraph has made a first bid unsuccessfully. Van de Ven himself would also be negotiating with l’OM, although more clubs have inquired about his asking price.
Van de Ven was this week with his agent Mino Raiola and his father in Marseille to talk about the personal conditions. However, the clubs also have to figure it out and that hasn’t happened yet. If successful, Van de Ven will be Raiola’s next Dutch client to move to France. Myron Boadu has left AZ for AS Monaco, while Calvin Stengs, Justin Kluivert and Pablo Rosario are moving to OGC Nice. Tuesday night reported Football International that another client of Raiola, Mohamed Ihattaren, may be going to AS Monaco.
“I think Ajax and Erik ten Hag are sleeping,” says Verweij, Ajax club watcher, in the podcast Kick-Off by The Telegraph. The amount of the first offer is not known, but according to the newspaper, it did not come close to the asking price. Yet Verweij does not think that Van de Ven, last season’s Talent of the Year in the Kitchen Champion Division, need be expensive. “For that money… I don’t understand why Ajax doesn’t get him. I wonder if it is a wise decision for such a twenty-year-old boy to go to the French league. He plays in your backyard, at FC Volendam. That Ajax doesn’t see that, or doesn’t want to see that, really surprises me.”
The podcast also talks about a possible return of Riechedly Bazoer in Amsterdam. Bazoer played for Ajax between 2014 and 2017 and is currently one of the star players of Vitesse, as a retracting center defender. “A line has been drawn through that. That is also due to the way he left Ajax, which was preceded by a quarrel”, Verweij recalls. “I think Marc Overmars would like it deep in his heart, because it was a failed project after he came from PSV to Ajax at a young age. But I don’t think it’s very realistic. Moreover, Ajax now has Ryan Gravenberch, who has long made Bazoer forget. I don’t think Ajax would put him in the back, certainly not for a five-man defence.”