My point around Tagliafico is that Sosa is close to the salary cap, while Tagliafico is on more than both him and Avila combined.

Probably (still have my doubts about Gaaei tbh), but I genuinely think, that with a decent head coach/manager, this squad is easily good enough for second or third.

Eh, Ziyech has been constantly injured for Gala; and while Tagliafico would probably have been a solid addition, he is on more than both of Sosa and Avila combined afaik.

Don’t know about that, if I’m completely honest, yes there were some signings that felt like they were being bought to fill up the squad, and it would have been preferable to have done that with youth players, Ajax did lose a lot of players this summer.

Let’s not forget that Mikautadze has yet to be played as a striker, Mannsverk has only featured in one game due to Injury, the only time Akpom has started was at Right wing and Ramaj hasn’t played because Steijn was angry at not getting Olij.

While I do agree that sometimes a cheap buy can become an expensive one, the only ones that threaten to go that way, are players who Steijn hasn’t really given a chance.

With Sneijder and Steijn, quite possible, and then Vd Vaart/Vd Meijde via Sneijder.

The players that he wanted, baring Olij, would all have asked for above/significantly above the now salary cap that the board had placed on Mislintat.

And it was known for a long time that we had to sell before bringing anyone in, with Mislintat only getting the go ahead after the first part of the Timber money being officially on the bank balance.

So, sure it wasn’t easy for Steijn, but that was because the board was being difficult, not Mislintat.

Because they have good contacts with him, Sneijder and Vd Vaart were close enough to him that they were being actively asked to be one of his assistants.

And Vd Meijde was literally getting most of his recent “scoops” from Steijn.

They were gone, until Steijn started giving him info to survive like a rat.

If you had read the article, Steijn is effectively calling Berghuis a backstabber, because he isn’t blindly following his instructions.

So tbh, this really stinks of Steijn giving Verweij his sob story in an attempt to win back sympathy (although nobody is taking it too seriously I hope).