Tottenham vs Ajax: Dusan Tadic's Dutch leap of faith is reaping rich rewards

How much fun can it really be as a talented creative player at the wrong end of the Premier League?

We like to tell ourselves that only Real Madrid and Barcelona, or maybe Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, are more attractive destinations than playing over here. That if you cannot play for a super club then, well, you might as well stay in England and take the money.

Nowhere else in the world pays mid-table players like the Premier League does. And the story of the last few decade has been the pulling-power of England’s ‘Bottom 14’ over the top sides in mid-level European countries. Like Davy Klaassen leaving Ajax for Everton, or Georginio Wijnaldum leaving PSV Eindhoven for Newcastle. Or any of Wolves’ good recent imports, or Fulham’s bad ones.

But last summer, Dusan Tadic decided to go the other way. He had played four good years at Southampton. But the team was on the slide, the best players had left and the managerial appointments were getting worse every time. He spent the end of last season playing for a Mark Hughes team that only just scraped to safety, with little prospect of imminent improvement.

So Tadic left it all behind, to return to Holland, to play for Ajax. It was a surprise: he was Saints’ best player, and he was going to play in Europe’s 11th ranked league, behind Ukraine and Turkey. And he did not do it for money, either. Ajax pushed the boat out for Tadic, paying him a £3million salary. A lot for them, but not a lot for the Premier League.

But less than one year on, who could possibly argue with Tadic’s decision? He is playing as a false nine for the most exciting team on the planet, one of their key players on a run to the semi-finals of the Champions League. More likely than not he will be in the final in Madrid on 1 June, when Southampton will be on their summer holidays after another season of just staying in the Premier League.

But it is not even the Champions League run that vindicates Tadic’s move. It is the fact that he gets to play exciting dominating football every single week, for a team that always has the ball and always plays to entertain. And the reality of the Premier League is that those conditions only really belong to the big six, and not even all of them. Not everyone gets to be Bernardo Silva.

Hearing Tadic discuss his move at White Hart Lane on Tuesday night was to hear a man who could not be happier with how his move has turned out. Because he has gone from playing underdog football to dominant football. And realised that how the game is played is what gives him the most pleasure.

“If you don’t play for one of the top six teams, you cannot dominate games,” Tadic said. “You spend a lot of time without the ball.”

The physicality of the league only makes it harder for the creative players of lesser sides, because they are kicked off the ball whenever they do get it. And then they are back to chasing. “In the Premier League, it’s hard because you don’t get much protection, it seems to be 80 per cent for the defender and 20 per cent for the attacker,” Tadic said. “It is much different if you play in Europe, you are protected more and I’ve loved playing for Ajax. We look to dominate against every team we play.”

So at Ajax Tadic gets to play the football he always dreamed of: ball possession, attacking intent, fast movement and interchange. He plays up front, but as what he calls a “fake striker”, pulling off, dropping deep, making space for runners beyond him. “I’m enjoying it,” he said. “I have a lot of freedom in that position, I can move where I want. I like to have freedom and like to work hard for the team.”

And if it sounds complex, it isn’t. Speaking after Ajax’s famous 2-1 win in Turin last month, Tadic said how quickly he picked it up. Because it is all about a shared instinctive intelligence.

“It is very easy [to learn] because we have similar way of thinking,” Tadic said. “I understand with all of the players, and then it is easy. Our team has all players who play nice football. They understand football.”

Now, surrounded by players who understand him and see the game the same way, Tadic is on the brink of history.

And other players like him, slogging it out in the bottom half of the Premier League, starved of the ball, kicked when they do have it, resigned to their team’s place among the have-nots, knowing they will never get to dominate games as they did before they moved here: those players might see the attraction of Tadic’s move too.

“The football philosophy is great, it’s nice to see four offensive teams in the semi-final who want to dominate,” Tadic said. “That’s nice to see this year. We showed against Juventus and Real Madrid, both top teams, that we were the better side. We play good football, with a lot of personality, and we will continue to do this. That is our great strength.”