When you play for a team as beautiful to watch as Ajax, there is always the need for a player who excels at the ugly side of things. Not the fancy flicks and the neat tricks, but the blocks and the bumps, the headers and the thumps. That player is Matthijs de Ligt.

At 19-years-old, there should be a boy, but he has matured faster than most. It was a performance which raises the stakes in the pursuit of one of Europe’s most in-demand player, because as good as Ajax are, they had to cling on in London and De Ligt was the reassuring presence they drew strength from.

It had been widely expected De Ligt would follow his young Ajax teammate Frenkie de Jong to Barcelona. That the Ajax boy would want to follow in the footsteps of an Ajax giant, Johan Cryuff, swapping Amsterdam for the capital of Catalonia.

It would be dangerous to assume anything. He has signed no contracts, there is no verbal agreement in place, he has not promised anyone, anything. In his own words, he has “not made up his mind yet.”

The door remains open and every top Premier League club should be trying to wedge it open to make their sales pitch.