When Sven Mislintat joined Ajax as the club’s new director of football in April, appointed with the task of improving the club’s recruitment and building a new title-winning squad from the ground up, the former Arsenal chief probably didn’t expect to be hounded out just five months later as the Johan Cruyff Arena – almost literally – crumbled around him.
Ajax were 3-0 down at home to arch rivals and champions Feyenoord when the blood-red flares came reigning down like lava from an erupting volcano; the final 20 minutes of the game suspended and to be completed on Wednesday.
And that most humbling of (presumed) defeats – Ajax’s worst start to a season since 1965 – marked the end for a man who was known as ‘Diamond Eyes’ at Borussia Dortmund but could now benefit from a trip of Vision Express.
That some are labelling Sven Mislitat’s departure overdue, after just five short months, tells quite the story.
Former Arsenal chief Sven Mislintat leaves Ajax already
“I was sitting in the stands yesterday, and I was just laughing. It was laughable to see. This cannot continue like this,” former Ajax Andy Van der Meyde said last week, speaking to Veronica Inside after a calamitous 3-1 defeat at FC Twente.
“That Mislintat has to go immediately. He has to leave immediately, tomorrow. He is ruining everything at Ajax. The whole club is going to ****. He has to leave very quickly.”
The legendary Marco van Basten pulled no punches either. He describes Mislintat’s near-£100 million summer spend as nothing short of a ‘catastrophe’.
Josip Sutalo, the Croatia international centre-half brought in from Dinamo Zagreb for £20 million, was the most expensive of his acquisitions, and he is already in danger of becoming an unfortunate posterboy of the miserable Mislintat era.
Arsenal looked at Josip Sutalo
Sutalo confirmed earlier this month that Arsenal ‘showed an interest’ in him too. A dismal start to life in the Netherlands, however, is doing little to quell suggestions that Mikel Arteta may have dodged a £20 million bullet, one-time Gunners director Mislintat bringing Sutalo to Amsterdam instead – ironically enough – as a replacement for Arsenal’s own Jurrien Timber.
“All (the new signings) had already proven in previous games this season that they are not (appropriate) signings for Ajax. The label of ‘bad purchase’ is not at all inappropriate,” reporter Valentijn Driessen tells De Telegraaf following that Feyenoord debacle; Sutalo looking about as comfortable as a die-hard vegan at a Hod Dog festival.
“The Croatian internationals Sutalo and (Borna) Sosa should be deeply ashamed.”
Whether Sutalo and co can turn around a sinking Ajax ship, only time will tell. But, as Mislitat will no doubt attest, the crisis-hit Dutch giants are not afraid of making unpopular sailors walk the plank.
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