The 25-year-old has been consistently linked with a move away from the Amsterdam ArenA this summer, despite the club's reluctance to sell.

And they were surprised to receive a pair of enquiries, from clubs reportedly willing to pay in the region of 40million euros, just minutes before the closure of the transfer window on Monday night.

"We were perplexed," said technical director Danny Blind. "A last-minute transfer of Huntelaar was clearly a no-no for us.

"Those two clubs got that response from us.

"I must say that it was just a phone call. You would have had to wait and see if the offer would have lived up to that on paper."

Huntelaar's agent Arnold Oosterveer was also surprised by the manner of the interest in his player.

"I told the involved clubs that called me to go to Ajax, knowing that it was too late to do something with this," he told AD Sportwereld.

"Ajax have been very clear about it. It's really unbelievable to be confronted by this at the very last minute."