Former Arsenal striker Chuba Akpom is already coming under fire at Ajax since moving to the Eredivisie giants in a £12 million summer deal from Championship outfit Middlesbrough.
With Ajax enduring their worst start to a season since 1965 and Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough hardly faring much better, it’s fair to say neither party is yet to benefit from the deal which took Chuba Akpom from the Riverside to the cavernous, quilted Johan Cruyff Arena turf.
Akpom’s Ajax career is only three games old. But, like Calvin Bassey following his big-money arrival from Rangers in 2022, the one-time Arsenal youngster is already facing an uphill battle as he looks to prove he possesses the velvet-toed technique to thrive at a club famous for their Total Voetbal principles.
Former Arsenal striker Chuba Akpom struggling at Ajax
“For him, such matches come too early,” former Ajax midfielder Marciano Vink tells ESPN; Akpom ineffectual as Santiago Gimenez plundered a hat-trick at the other end in Feyenoord’s crushing 4-0 Der Klassiker victory in Amsterdam.
“He has poor technique. That is not just his fault. The rest of Ajax is also severely lacking.”
Akpom has, at least, outlasted another former Arsenal employee.
Director Sven Mislintat, who spent two years at the Emirates between 2017 and 2019, paid the ultimate price this week, sacked after just five months and nearly £100 million’s worth of very questionable signings.
Ajax crisis continues
Akpom claimed the Championship’s Golden Boot award last term, netting 29 times for Middlesbrough in all competitions. Worryingly for Ajax, however, that was very much the exception rather than the rule on Akpom’s CV. And that ‘one season wonder’ tag will become increasingly difficult to shake off the longer he has to wait for a maiden goal in Dutch football.
“Akpom, I don’t know what the intention,” argues former Feyenoord captain Karim El Ahmadi, the former England U21 international lost in an ill-fitting right-wing role.
“I’ve got the feeling that he doesn’t know the Ajax game at all or how to play between the lines. I saw him looking for the number 10 position. I don’t think he even knew what to do.”
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