Blues have claimed seven centers and feet in their current squad, but only Levy Colevil, who played regularly in the previous season, and benite badiashile is naturally left-sided.
Frenchman Badiashil’s 2024–25 campaign was interrupted by hamstring injury in December, while only three Premier League suggested that head coach Enzo Marska wanted another option to compete with Kolvil in Defense’s heart.
Hato brings versatility, large parts of the previous season are playing in left-back in Ajax and firmly out of favor with Ben Chilwell, 19-Years can also offer competition for full-back mark Kukurela regularly to offer competition for the Champions League campaign.
In 2023–24, Hato played 80% of his football in the center-box, usually in the formation of 4–2–3–1. However, in the previous season, the new head coach Francesco Farioly deployed him to the left-wapus for 94% of his minutes as part of the formation of 4-3-3.
Hato has already played 111 competitive games for Ajax’s first team, after making his debut in 2023 at just 16 years and 335 days. This made him the third youngest player in the club to feature in Ereedivisi after Clarence Cedorf and Ryan Gravenbor. He also won his first Netherlands cap after less than a year.
Since that first appearance, Hato has almost been present for Ajax. Out of the top six league players born after 1 January 2003, he has played the highest minutes at the club level since the introduction of 2023–24 (8,347), the highest minutes in the club level, Jude Bellingham (7,988) and Lamin Yamal (7,506) are clear.
