{"id":2932,"date":"2023-08-15T13:51:23","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T12:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/08\/15\/read_news-phpnid48460\/"},"modified":"2023-08-15T13:51:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T12:51:23","slug":"read_news-phpnid48460","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/08\/15\/read_news-phpnid48460\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Very big yes&#8217; &#8211;\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk backs Arsenal product Akpom to be a hit at Ajax:: All Nigeria Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"newsbody\">\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/..\/football_pics\/21550Akpom.png\" height=\"240\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" alt=\"'Very big yes' -\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk backs Arsenal product Akpom to be a hit at Ajax\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Former Glasgow Celtic,\u00a0Nottingham Forest and Feyenoord marksman,\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk\u00a0reckons that Arsenal youth product Chuba Akpom\u00a0will prove to be a big hit at Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Eredivisie giants are on the verge of confirming the signing of the Super Eagles hopeful, with the player scheduled to travel to the Netherlands as from Monday, August 14 for a routine medical ahead of his unveiling.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ajax Amsterdam have reached an agreement with\u00a0Middlesbrough to sign Akpom for a fee of 12 million euros plus another two million euros in performance-related add-ons.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Hale End Academy product had a glittering season in 2022-2023, scoring 28 goals in 38 appearances in the regular season to help\u00a0Middlesbrough qualify for the Championship playoffs, where they were beaten by Coventry City.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ajax Amsterdam director of football, Sven Mislintat\u00a0knows all about the qualities of Akpom\u00a0as he was previously Head of Scouting at Arsenal, for whom the Nigerian made twelve first team appearances in total.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When asked if he sees Akpom as an excellent reinforcement for Ajax,\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk told <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.footballtransfers.com\/nl\/transfernieuws\/nl-eredivisie\/2023\/08\/van-hooijdonk-juicht-komst-akpom-naar-ajax-toe-ja-een-hele-dikke-ja\" rel=\"noopener\">Studio Voetbal, via Footballtransfers<\/a>: &#8220;Yes. Very big yes. He is big, athletic, fast, two-legged, has a fantastic header, but especially really looks for space behind the defense.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is not someone who hangs with his back to the opponent like Brobbey, but he really looks for the through balls. I&#8217;ve watched his goals, the quality splashes off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Akpom\u00a0missed the first three games played by\u00a0Middlesbrough in the new season due to fitness issues as a result of an injury he suffered in the Championship playoff match with Coventry City.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Igho Kingsley\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copyright ANS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from allnigeriasoccer.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/read_news.php?nid=48460\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Glasgow Celtic,\u00a0Nottingham Forest and Feyenoord marksman,\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk\u00a0reckons that Arsenal youth product Chuba Akpom\u00a0will prove to be a big hit at Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam.\u00a0 \u00a0 The Eredivisie giants are on the verge of confirming the signing of the Super Eagles hopeful, with the player scheduled to travel to the Netherlands as from Monday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}