Serero shows Overmars’ lack of vision

With September beginning, the transfer window has ended. For Ajax, it was well and truly a hectic window. Jasper Cillessen and Arek Milik departed for huge amounts of money, and a part of that cash was reinvested in the squad, with the arrival of Hakim Ziyech as the marquee signing. However, the criticism in director of football Marc Overmars and his transfer-policy has risen once more, with fans almost demanding his departure. And let me tell you, in contrary to what De Telegraaf claims, that’s completely justified.

I’ll even go as far as claiming that Overmars has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. Of course, he has been able to sell important players for record-breaking sums, but that’s not really an achievement in today’s transfer market, is it? There aren’t really any negotiation skills needed to recoup large amounts of money on key players in the Ajax squad. We were lucky to sell Milik for the idiotic sum of 32 million euros, but that was only because Napoli had a large pile of cash themselves, due to the sale of Gonzalo Higuain to Juventus.

The arrivals have shown once again that Overmars has absolutely no vision. Bertrand Traoré was chosen as the new striker, ahead of Bas Dost and Sebastian Haller. But what do Traoré and Dost have in common? Absolutely nothing. Overmars just looked for a new striker, not using any profile whatsoever. Same goes with new goalie Tim Krul, who is a good shot-stopper, but completely different as a player than Cillessen was. It just seems to me as if Overmars just looks at well-known names in his scouting, instead of looking at what fits the squad the best.

The most hilarious of misfires from the DoF this summer, however, was the saga leading up to Ziyech’s arrival. Overmars went on record claiming they weren’t interested in the Moroccan, claiming they already had way too many midfielders. Then, when there was reported interested in midfielders such as Riechedly Bazoer (who is also a completely different type of player than Ziyech, but alright), Overmars moved and brought the Twente-star to Amsterdam. And now, two days later, you guessed it: not one midfielder departed.

At least Lasse Schone and Thulani Serero were expected to leave the club, but De Telegraaf reported late last evening that they weren’t going anywhere, because they were so satisfied with their paychecks, they’d rather be reserves for an entire year than leave. What?! How is that even possible? Why would any director offer Serero so much money, that he can’t possibly earn that elsewhere? I like Serero, he is a hard-working player and had his value for Ajax, but why pay him so much money? The South-African midfielder is ready to throw away a year of his career, just because he gets payed enough.

It’s absolutely baffling that you anticipate on the departure of these players by buying a player like Ziyech, only to not follow up on your expectations. Now we’re actually stuck with more than ten midfielders, most of them aged 21 or under, who all expect a decent amount of playing time in the season. Davy Klaassen has rightfully earned his spot in the starting eleven, and for some reason even Nemanja Gudelj has a starting spot. Assuming that Hakim Ziyech will play midfield as well (I sure hope so), that’s the entire midfield three already handed away.

That leaves you with Donny van de Beek, Riechedly Bazoer, Abdelhak Nouri, Frenkie de Jong, Daley Sinkgraven, Schone, Serero, who all have to divide the leftover-games between the seven of them. And all because Overmars couldn’t offload them because they earn too much to care about game time. And that’s the overall consensus of Overmars career since entering the board of directors in 2012. Every time he shows the slightest sign of having a clue what he’s on about, he throws that away within a couple of days. He’s the real life equivalent of an inexperienced Football Manager-player. That’s obviously fun in a computer game, but we’re talking about real money, in a real football club, with real fans. The last couple of days have proven again: it really should be game over(mars).

Written by Lukas Schroder

Lukas writes every Wednesday for AjaxDaily. His love for Ajax is only transcended by his hate for Nemanja Gudelj. Got called 'The worst writer of all time' on Twitter once. Wears that like a badge.