Valentijn Driessen thinks that Ajax should have chosen to let Edson Álvarez leave. The journalist of The Telegraph is in any case not impressed by the performances of the team from Amsterdam on the transfer market this summer. “I think too little is happening at Ajax,” Driessen said in the podcast Kick off.
Ajax recently rejected an offer of twenty million euros from Stade Rennes for Álvarez. “It says enough that they are not letting Álvarez go now,” says Driessen. “The ceiling is suddenly Álvarez. This Álvarez is really not suddenly better than the Álvarez that we have been seeing in the Johan Cruijff ArenA for a year and a half. If that is your ceiling, then that is quite a shock. good player and I think there are really better players, also for that position. That he is so important… I understand that you want to keep him, but if you get this amount you really have to get rid of him, because He doesn’t deliver that much special. Yes, it is a defensive midfielder. Well, there are more defensive midfielders, who also cost less than twenty million but do the same.”
Driessen had expected that Ajax would strengthen itself more. “The only one is actually Steven Berghuis”, he sees. “Sébastien Haller is not up to the mark… I have yet to see it all. I don’t think they have gotten better by definition. I am confirmed by the attitude towards Álvarez. In fact, that was the man you would say: continue to select. “
Mike Verweij then points out that Ajax has in any case kept the team together. “Plus Steven Berghuis achieved,” said Verweij. “You would say: that is good enough to become champions, but I would not be very reassured about that, if you see how PSV is breathing down their necks, and that they say they have the financial possibilities to add three or four players. A lot depends on whether or not they make it to the Champions League, but reinforcements will come.”
Driessen is once again critical of Ajax. “It is of course very nice that you can keep everyone together, but is that out of luxury, or is it because those guys are not in the spotlight? Because which player would you pick up from Ajax for 35 million euros? In two years Ryan Gravenberch and Jurriën Timber maybe, but they aren’t in a position yet that you can let that kind of money go.You paid way too much for Haller, maybe Antony, but he’s only just arriving, so you can ask yourself whether Ajax is worth that much.”