Chuba Akpom scored 28 Championship goals in a single season for Middlesbrough. Ajax paid for that player and got something different. He has now explained why, and the answer is as much about the club as it is about him.
Chuba Akpom has opened up on one of the most difficult chapters of his career, telling Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that Ajax’s chronic instability during his two years at the club made consistent performances almost impossible to sustain. The 30-year-old forward was speaking after Ipswich Town triggered the mandatory buy clause in his loan deal, completing a permanent transfer worth £7 million following the Suffolk club’s promotion to the Premier League.
Akpom will join Ipswich permanently from July 1, 2026 on a three-year contract running until June 2029. The deal was triggered automatically when Ipswich confirmed their return to the Premier League on May 2 after a 3-0 victory over QPR left them second in the Championship on 84 points.
What Akpom Said About Ajax
Speaking candidly about his spell in Amsterdam, Akpom did not look for easy excuses. He acknowledged the scale of the challenge Ajax had created for themselves by making dramatic changes all at once.
“There were many new players, a new coach and a new technical director. With so many changes, it’s difficult to succeed immediately. I would have preferred to arrive in a stable situation; now, all the new signings had a tough time.”
The numbers tell the story of a player caught in an institution in free fall. Akpom made 68 appearances across two seasons at the Johan Cruyff Arena, scoring 23 goals and providing four assists. In the 2023/24 Eredivisie season alone, he scored 11 goals in 25 league appearances, often from the bench. By most clubs’ standards those would be considered respectable returns. By Ajax’s historically high expectations, they were viewed as a disappointment. Super Eagles fans following Akpom’s Premier League return can check the Bet9ja YOHAIG promo code ahead of next season.
The Sven Mislintat Era That Broke Ajax
Akpom arrived at Ajax as one of 12 players recruited under technical director Sven Mislintat, the former Arsenal and Stuttgart scout whose appointment in 2023 was seen as a bold modern recruitment approach. Within 18 months, Mislintat’s entire strategy had been dismantled along with his role, leaving a squad of players who had been bought for one system and left to function under completely different coaches with different demands.
Akpom was one of those players. He scored enough goals to show his quality was real. He never felt settled enough to produce at the level that had earned him the 2022/23 Championship Golden Boot at Middlesbrough, where he netted 28 goals in 38 appearances. The Ajax chapter ended not in failure but in unresolved potential, which may actually be the more frustrating outcome. Ipswich fans tracking how Akpom might finally deliver that potential at the top level can find markets at bet9japromotioncode.com.ng ahead of their Premier League return.
A Modest Season at Ipswich, a Guaranteed Transfer
Akpom’s 2025/26 Ipswich season was not the campaign he would have scripted. He made 31 appearances across all competitions, but started only a handful of matches and contributed just two goals: one against Oxford United on New Year’s Day in a 3-1 win, and one against Hull City. Both came from substitute appearances.
For a striker who once scored 28 goals in a single Championship campaign, two goals from the bench represents a significant comedown. Ipswich fan pundit Adam Wilkin described the mandatory buy clause as “a weird agreement,” noting the club had little choice but to pay £7 million for a player who had not convinced during the season. Whether Akpom can rediscover his best form at Premier League level is the question Ipswich must now answer in the 2026/27 season. Those who want to back Ipswich’s survival push next season can get started with this Bet9ja promo code today page ahead of the campaign.
The Super Eagles Question That Remains Open
Akpom was born in Newham, London, and has represented England at youth level but has never been capped at senior level by any nation. He is eligible for Nigeria through his heritage and his name appears periodically in conversations about the Super Eagles squad.
At 30, the window for an international debut is narrowing. But a Premier League return at Ipswich, playing regularly against top-division opposition, would strengthen any case for inclusion in Eric Chelle’s planning for the 2026 World Cup squad and beyond. If Akpom can recapture even a portion of the form that made him the Championship’s best striker three years ago, the conversation about Nigeria will inevitably intensify. The talent that scored 28 Championship goals is not gone. He just needs consistent football and a stable environment to find it again. Ipswich, now rebuilding for the Premier League with a clear vision, might finally provide both.
Did You Know?
- Akpom’s 28-goal Championship Golden Boot season at Middlesbrough in 2022/23 placed him among the most prolific Championship scorers in the last decade. He finished seven goals clear of the nearest competitor that season and earned a move to Ajax that was widely seen as a deserved step up in class for a player who had spent much of his career in the lower divisions of English football.
- Sven Mislintat, under whom Akpom was signed at Ajax, previously worked as head of recruitment at Arsenal from 2017 to 2019, where he was responsible for signings including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Bernd Leno. His departure from Arsenal was followed by stints at VfB Stuttgart and then Ajax, where his recruitment strategy was ultimately dismantled within 18 months of his appointment in 2023.
- Akpom is a product of Arsenal’s Hale End academy, the same facility that has produced Emile Smith Rowe, Bukayo Saka, and Eddie Nketiah in recent years. He never made a first-team appearance for Arsenal, going out on loan spells to Brentford, Coventry City, Nottingham Forest, Hull City, and Brighton before eventually leaving on a permanent basis. His return to the Premier League with Ipswich marks his first sustained top-flight campaign in England since those loan days.
- Ipswich Town’s promotion alongside Coventry City means that for the first time since the 2001/02 season, Ipswich will compete in the top flight of English football. Their rise from League One in 2023 to the Premier League in 2026 under director of football Mark Ashton and managers Kieran McKenna and subsequently their current head coach is one of the most dramatic three-year rehabilitation stories in English football history.
- Akpom scored four goals in Europa League qualifying matches for Ajax during his time at the club, including a memorable brace against Ludogorets in the preliminary rounds. Those European goals showed that his quality in front of goal had not disappeared during the turbulent Ajax era, even if the Eredivisie returns were less consistent than the Golden Boot campaign at Middlesbrough had promised they would be.
- Ipswich Town’s promotion to the Premier League was celebrated at Portman Road with pop star Ed Sheeran, a well-known Ipswich supporter, joining the players on the pitch and singing songs with the squad following their confirmation of promotion. Sheeran has been a prominent backer of the club’s revival and his presence at the promotion celebrations underlined the level of community and celebrity interest that has surrounded Ipswich’s remarkable Championship campaign.
- The mandatory buy clause structure in Akpom’s loan deal, triggered automatically by promotion, is increasingly common in Championship football where clubs want to secure transfer certainty without paying upfront fees. Ipswich had to pay £7 million for Akpom regardless of whether they believed he had done enough to justify the cost, a clause structure that Football League World pundit Adam Wilkin publicly described as “a punt that has failed” given the striker’s modest output during the loan campaign.
