Ajax sporting director Gerry Hamstra has hit out at Manchester United over the timing of their Antony transfer pursuit in the summer just gone.
The Red Devils certainly hurt Ajax this summer, with the club first hiring manager Erik ten Hag and later signing two of their star players with deals for defender Lisandro Martinez, and then winger Antony just before the deadline.
Ajax are clearly not happy with how things went, with Hamstra slamming Man Utd for leaving it so late to sign Antony, leaving them without any time to sign a replacement.
Overall, Hamstra is not happy to have had the Ajax squad so depleted after this summer, with star striker Sebastien Haller also leaving to join Borussia Dortmund.
Still, there’s no doubt that United did them the most damage by raiding them for their manager and two hugely important players in Martinez and Antony, with Hamstra clearly frustrated with how they dealt with the latter of those in particular.
“Manchester United’s timing was so bad,” he said, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News.
“The last few days (of the transfer window) became even more hectic after Ajax had already gone through a major rebuild of the squad following the departure of lots of top-class players.
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“It was so difficult to leave our new manager with such a void. We all think we lost too many first-team players who always start. We had a summer with totally different expectations. We wanted to keep the group together as much as possible to be able to perform well in the Champions League and to carry on being successful.
“That’s what we talked about with Alfred. Of course we knew there were a few snags. But no one had foreseen that our players would be bought for such huge sums of money.”