Ajax manager Erik ten Hag has effectively confirmed that Hakim Ziyech will be a Chelsea player next season.
The 26-year-old Moroccan winger is said to have agreed a deal with the Blues worth £38million, and will link up with his new club at the end of the current campaign.
Chelsea were chasing a deal for the former Heerenveen and FC Twente man in the January transfer window having had their transfer ban lifted, but Ajax were insistent that Ziyech stay at the club until the end of the campaign as they seek to successfully defend the Eredivisie title.
Speaking to Fox Sports before Ajax's 3-0 KNVB Cup victory over Vitesse Arnhem on Wednesday, Ten Hag said that a move was in the pipeline, and that it could even have happened earlier.
"Ziyech to Chelsea? A transfer was coming, we expected it to happen" he said.
"And I actually already expected this one or two years earlier. And each time it was: ‘Wow, he stayed again’. We are just happy that we will still have him until the end of the season.”
Ziyech enjoyed a standout campaign for Ajax in the 2018/19 season, coming off the back of an impressive World Cup with Morocco.
He scored 21 goals in 49 games in all competitions as the Dutch giants won the Eredivisie title and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, where they seemed all set to reach the final before a remarkable semi-final collapse against Tottenham.
He was named in UEFA's Champions League squad of the season last year, and has picked up the award for the most assists in the Eredivisie in each of his three seasons with Ajax.
