Ajax drag feet on Mohammed Kudus to Everton move as Premier League sides make contact
Mohammed Kudus’ proposed move to Everton stalled when Ajax realised there was a surprisingly big market for him, according to Saddick Adams.
Reports from Times journalist Paul Joyce and Fabrizio Romano on Friday (19 August) suggested the versatile Ghanaian midfielder was due to arrive at Goodison imminently, but now Ajax boss Alfred Schreuder has denied any move is on the cards.
After his side’s 1-0 win over Sparta Rotterdam he said, via Voetbal International: “I haven’t heard anything… I don’t think he should leave. You can see he is important. We need a lot of good players… Of course he also thinks he should play. Anyway, only eleven can play”.
But in response to these words, Ghanaian journalist Adams, who has nearly 640,000 followers on Twitter and won the 2018 GJA Sports Journalist of the Year award, suggested the coach was being unfair on the 22-year-old and the transfer to Goodison was delayed because other Premier League teams made contact over a move.
He wrote on his personal Twitter account on Monday afternoon: “Ajax actually dragged their feet on the Everton move when they realized that a player they were not playing was subject of formal interest from FOUR English Premier League sides, a top German side among others.
“Schreuder has reasons best known to him.”
Run around
Frank Lampard will no doubt be finding this intensely frustrating if the Toffees were on the brink of another deal and the selling club have decided to play games at the last minute.
Considering the way the deal to bring Idrissa Gueye back to the club has become such an ordeal it is the last thing the manager needs for this to also happen.
If Schreuder is acting like no move is happening and he needs Kudus, it doesn’t really tie up with the fact that he’s only given the player four late substitute appearances so far this season in three different positions [Transfermarkt].
It looks like Everton had swooped ahead of the crowd to get a deal done, and almost managed to do so, but the Dutch giants might sniff the opportunity to start a late bidding war for a reserve player.
The fact that Antony’s future is also up in the air amid a possible mega-money move to join Erik ten Hag at Manchester United is possibly also giving them an incentive to keep the Toffees hanging.
Those may be valid considerations for a selling club if they maintain the position from the start, but it’s somewhat underhand to get so close to completing a loan-to-buy deal with Everton before backtracking.
Perhaps this one still gets done, but it is a massively infuriating development, and it has an ominous feel about the eventual prospects of completing it.