Ajax Technical Manager Gerry Hamstra has criticised Manchester United for when they moved to sign Antony, saying the timing was “so bad.”
Man Utd were interested in Antony all summer but didn’t ramp up their interest and make a formal approach until the very end of the transfer window.
When they did so, Ajax rejected it as they didn’t want to sell the Brazilian winger and had little time to bring a replacement for him in.
However, with the player refusing to train to try and force his way out and the British club offering around €100m, they ultimately let him go.
Hamstra says that, while the Eredivise champions wanted to keep him, they couldn’t say no to such a large sum of money, but he’s far from pleased with when Man Utd chose to make their move.
“Manchester United’s timing was so bad,” he told De Telegraaf.
“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.
“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.”
GBeNeFN
