When Ajax finally agreed to sell Antony to Manchester United, there was very little time left for them to find a replacement.
Normally, this is where the club would dip into their extremely talented youth teams to find the next great talent to fill the gap left by the Brazilian, but it appears they didn’t feel anyone was ready to just yet.
That’s why they went out in the deadline day wilderness with their new money from Manchester United to try and find someone, with that ending up being Lucas Ocampos, on loan from Sevilla.
They initially wanted to buy him, but those with the final say at Ajax decided against that, favouring a short-term option just in case it didn’t work out.
It hasn’t so far, and there are some ready to be very critical of the way the Eredivisie side handled Antony’s sale to Manchester United and what followed afterwards.
He said: “[Ocampos] is not an Ajax player. He’s all rough-and-tumble, he can do that quite well but he doesn’t fit into the Ajax system at all. [Ajax] did not anticipate well. They knew Antony could go away, and Martinez too. Then you can pre-sort some stuff, but they panicked and went get, get, get.
“They also waited a very long-time in the game to raise Antony’s price. Of course you can be busy with your scouting, but why do two men have to do it all?”
Since arriving at Manchester United, Antony has made four appearances in two competitions, scoring two goals against Arsenal and Manchester City.
Over at Ajax, Ocampos has made five appearances, but only started one game, with that coming over the weekend in a 1-1 draw against Go Ahead Eagles, where he came off in the 63rd minute without really impacting the fixture.
