The 'Zero Value' Verdict on Amrabat: Why Ajax's Creativity Deficit Is Being Blamed on the Wrong Address

Seven minutes. The clock at the Johan Cruijff ArenA had barely crossed the seventh minute when Tolu Arokodare put the ball in the net. From my seat near the touchline, the first reaction was simple relief: Ajax were ahead, and the match would now settle into their hands. What the following eighty minutes showed was not control but a kind of stillness. The ball stayed at feet, the passing count climbed, the possession numbers balanced — and yet the passes aimed at the box could almost be counted. The final whistle came at 1-1. Two points dropped at home.

Across years of standing at training-ground fences, in dugouts and in press boxes, I have built one habit: I do not count results first, I count the repetitions inside a game. How often the ball went sideways, how often it came back out of the box, how often a defender was forced into a backward pass — these small entries tell the real story. On Saturday evening, Ajax's story was the monotony of repetition. And that monotony later hardened into sharp criticism inside a television studio.

The event was a routine Eredivisie round, at home against NEC. Ajax went ahead in the seventh minute and could not hold the win. In that same match, the most discussed name of the club's summer recruitment came under scrutiny. On ESPN, Mario Been said plainly that Sofyan Amrabat has not yet delivered what Ajax signed him for.

In Been's words, Amrabat offers Ajax "zero added value" — sideways passes, knocking the ball back and forth, something "anyone can do". In the same segment he praised academy winger Abdellah Ouazane and argued the youngster should get far more minutes. His reasoning: in matches like this Ajax need creativity and players who can beat a man — and, Been claims, they did not have them.

Been's tone is harsh, but look at the argument inside it and you notice he is not really talking about how good a player is; he is talking about what kind of player he is. That is the true centre of the critique — and it is where many people are sending the letter to the wrong address.

Amrabat is a recycler, not a creator. In midfield there are two distinct jobs. One is to hold the ball, distribute safely, and start attacks with the first pass of the build-up. The other is to work near the box, break lines, beat a man and rise above. Amrabat is the first type. His craft lies in blocking opponents, recovering the ball and controlling tempo — not in putting it in the net.

The problem is that against a side like NEC, Ajax were looking for the second job. When an opponent scores and then sits deep, you break them with dribbles, through-balls and late runs into the box. That is not a recycler's work. So calling Amrabat a flop is easy, but blaming him for failing at a job that was never his is, by any analytical ledger, unfair. The fault is not the player's; it is the decision that built the squad.

You can call this a category error in squad-building. When a team's problem is creating goals, and it buys the ability to prevent them, the equation does not balance. What Been describes is simply the normal picture of a deep-lying midfielder. That does not mean Amrabat is bad; it means Ajax bought an answer to the wrong question.

The shape of the match supports this. Taking an early lead, then holding possession but failing to find the final pass — that is the familiar signature of sterile possession. The ball is there, the penetration is not. In that state, what the crowd sees is a sideways pass; and the critic reads a sideways pass as inactivity.

NEC's plan was not described in the report, but the shape of the match speaks. After the goal Ajax's share of the ball rose, the opponent dropped deep, and the open space shrank. In that state, circulating the ball sideways means slowing the rhythm of the attack — and that is exactly comfort for the opponent. The match was not just one evening's picture; it was a pattern.

This is where Ouazane enters. Been repeatedly describes him as someone who can beat opponents — 1v1. That is a coherent tactical argument, not mere sentiment. The simplest way through a deep block is a dribbler who receives and drives inside, dragging the opponent's structure out of shape. As an academy player, Ouazane can do that job.

But a larger frame is running through Been's tone — the club's big names versus its own academy boy. That frame is especially powerful at Ajax, because Ajax have historically lived by producing and selling talent; their model is not a squad of stars. So when an expensive, experienced signing fails to add value on the training-match ledger, and an academy player catches the eye beside him, both lines grow large in the reporting book.

The Eredivisie's structure widens this tension. Ajax cannot match the spending of the big-five-league clubs, so every major signing is a risk bet. Fail to repay it and the loss doubles — on the pitch and in the books. Yet an academy player who fails costs almost nothing financially. Criticise without understanding this asymmetry and the picture stays incomplete.

The matter is not only a pitch calculation. A senior, experienced player's contract is usually worth several times an academy graduate's. If he adds no value on the pitch, the club begins carrying a deadweight contract — hard to move, and a crack in the wage structure. For a club like Ajax, that risk is not small.

And there is the reverse side. If Ouazane keeps drawing attention, bigger-league clubs will knock within one or two seasons. That is the eternal tension of an academy-led model: you develop, someone else takes away. So Ouazane's minutes are not only a selection question but a retention plan.

Now to the side that looks easiest from outside and is in fact the weakest argument. Social media is already circulating the Amrabat-flop line. That is not a reliable conclusion, because the sample is a single match. A new player's adaptation window — new league, new teammates, new coach's demands — does not close this fast.

Second, Been's criticism in effect creates a selection dilemma for coach Míchel. He is publicly arguing for Ouazane while questioning Ajax's expensive signing. The coach then faces two pressures: justifying the club's investment, and satisfying an academy-leaning culture. Those two pressures can never be satisfied at once, and that is the real management problem — not one player's form.

Third, remember that the pundit segment is itself a media product. "Zero added value" is a superb quote, and it goes viral fast. But the sharpness of a quote and the depth of an analysis are not the same thing. The transfer market is a metronome, not a casino; listen for the tempo, not the noise — and this match's tempo was saying something else. I keep the beat by asking who set it, who kept it, and who broke it.

So what should we watch next? The real signal will be whom Míchel starts in the next match. If a creator sits beside Amrabat, his role becomes clear — and the flop debate will quietly fade. If Ouazane is again left on the bench, the question will turn from the player to the philosophy of squad-building.

At Jersey Road, trust was never announced; it was counted, drill by drill. At the Johan Cruijff ArenA the accounting is the same — minutes, roles and repetitions. A training-ground observer counts the things that never make the broadcast. However loud the announcement, the ledger does not speak last.