Ajax have been linked with a move for Oleksandr Zinchenko as his loan at Nottingham Forest struggles to deliver the game time hoped for when the deal was completed. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports the Eredivisie club want to “finalise” the signing of Zinchenko “as soon as possible,” and have opened talks with his agent, Jorge Mendes. The player has apparently given the green light to a potential switch.<\/p>\n
The original loan to Forest surprised some observers, given the club had been bolstering the squad under then-manager Nuno Espir\u00edto Santo to prepare for this season\u2019s Europa League. Zinchenko has featured for 225 minutes in that competition but has played only limited Premier League minutes after a groin injury sidelined him for the best part of two months. Since returning to fitness, Sean Dyche has selected Zinchenko in the starting XI only once, a 2\u20130 home defeat that deepened the club\u2019s relegation woes.<\/p>\n
There has been previous speculation that the loan could be curtailed, and De Telegraaf\u2019s report points to Ajax as a club prepared to take a punt. The Dutch side see him as capable of strengthening at left back and in the midfield No. 6 role. Zinchenko has significant experience in the heart of midfield for his country, where he is noted for tenacious tackling and lung-bursting runs from deep.<\/p>\n
Statistically he has scored 12 times at international level and seven goals in 286 club appearances, reflecting the various positions he has occupied. Pep Guardiola once described Zinchenko\u2019s best position and the adaptation that followed: \u201cIn the position that we have in the midfield, in the pockets as the attacking midfielder,\u201d Pep Guardiola once said of Zinchenko\u2019s best position. \u201cThat is his position, definitely. When we bought Oleks for \u00a32 million from Ukraine, he was a No.10\u2014a Phil Foden position, a creative player\u2014but the needs we had… We didn\u2019t have a left back for many years.\u201d Settling in at left back then happened \u201cbecause he is well-educated, he knows exactly what it means. He adapted and said: \u2018Okay, what does the team need? I\u2019m going to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ajax are reportedly in talks to sign Oleksandr Zinchenko as they seek cover at left back in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,298,1163],"tags":[1081,1254,983],"class_list":["post-6049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-nottingham-forest","category-transfers","tag-adaptation","tag-adductor-injury","tag-agents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}