Nothing depressing about this. All he’s saying is that Ajax have a particular brand of football and he adapted to it. United have never played that style and don’t have the players for it, so it doesn’t make sense to try to do the exact same thing he did before.
This happens to everyone except the few super clubs. Even a club like Spurs has their biggest talents constantly linked to other clubs. Not completely unreasonable given his desire to join City and that he left for Bayern, but still, they weren’t the only clubs constantly linked.
I don’t think it’s a very concrete statement. But to me it says, Ronaldo and Messi have left the spotlight and Bellingham is now finding himself in that spotlight instead.
Zaire-Emery and Simons?
Zaire-Emery and Simons?
But looking at the United squad right now, who are actually players you’d expect to see at an Ajax side? Martinez and Eriksen. Not so much anyone else. Even Antony isn’t the kind of player to really set the playstyle at a club like Ajax, even if he did well there.
Ten Hag should be blamed for his mistakes, but I wouldn’t say this is a squad in between the old counter attacking style and the “Ajax” style. This is an unfinished squad, with simply a lot of poor players and unfit players. I would blame Ten Hag for having a front three of Rashford, Hojlund and Antony. Because it is a very expensive lineup, that doesn’t really make sense together and isn’t all that great individually either. But he’s also trying to make it work with what was already in the squad and a lot of the players just aren’t up for it.