AZ not intending to let Jesper Karlsson leave for Celta Vigo | OneFootball

Jesper Karlsson has said he wants to join Celta Vigo, but AZ’s technical director says the Dutch club aren’t planning to give him his wish.

Karlsson was immensely impressive in the Eredivisie last season, scoring 15 goals and getting 12 assists in 34 matches, so interest from the major European leagues this summer was to be expected.

Celta Vigo have emerged as a team that wants to sign him, and in an interview with Swedish media, the winger stated that he’d like to join the Spanish club.

While that may be the case though, AZ technical director Max Huiberts says they don’t intend on letting him leave the club in this transfer window.

“We have indicated that we want to maintain a strong selection and perform. For us, it is currently non-negotiable,” he told NOS.

“I will not go into amounts that are or are not offered. They contacted us a while ago. I immediately told Jesper that we want to keep him for another year.

“That message has come across clearly and will remain so. I understand that that is quite difficult to hear because you always want to make a nice step, but he also has to understand that we want to perform with AZ.

“He has had two good years and if there is another good year, there may be better clubs for him.”

That being said, Huiberts admitted that every player has a price, and suggested they’d consider letting Karlsson go for a high offer if they found a replacement.

“That’s absolutely true. I am certainly not saying that everything is non-negotiable,” he added.

“But at the moment we do not get a comparable player. When we got Jesper we let Oussama Idrissi go. We were able to do that because we had brought in a similar, if not better, player.

“Jesper is of great value to AZ. We need him to achieve our goals.”