Jose Mourinho’s Spurs reportedly want to bring Edson Alvarez to the Premier League – he can’t buy a start in the Eredivisie for Ajax right now.
Marco Van Basten has criticised Ajax’s decision to spend £13 million on Edson Alvarez last summer, speaking to Fox Sports, with the struggling Mexican linked with a move to Tottenham Hotspur.
A former Club America star swapped central America for Amsterdam in July with the Champions League semi-finalists hoping that they had found a man capable of filling a Matthijs de Ligt-shaped hole at the heart of their backline.
But to say Alvarez has not lived up to expectations, or his hefty price-tag, is a rather sizeable understatement. The 22-year-old has only started two of Ajax’s last 11 Eredivisie games and his nightmare season got even worse last week as he gave away a penalty in a KNVB Cup semi-final defeat to Utrecht.
And, just to add to the drama, Ajax and Holland legend Van Basten has now criticised the club’s decision to sign a player who is now being tipped to make a fresh start at Tottenham by De Telegraaf.
“Come on! If you buy someone, he must be of the level (required to play for a club like Ajax). Otherwise, it’s just meaningless,” said the three-time Ballon D’Or winner, who believes his former club should have promoted a centre-back from their feted academy instead.
“What is going on at Ajax in the youth (team) is better than (signing) all sorts of foreigners.”
The reigning Dutch champions are famed for their ability to replace star players on an almost annual basis but Alvarez is far from the only new signing to struggle at the Johan Cruyff Arena of late.
Defender Kik Pierie has not played a single Eredivisie game so far while Razvan Marin, the big-money Frenkie de Jong successor, has been left on the bench for seven straight league games. The return of veteran winger Ryan Babel is also starting to look like a misstep.
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