Manchester United are looking to bolster their midfield ahead of the 2022-23 campaign and have now been linked with Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong.
Erik ten Hag, who is set to become United's next manager, worked with De Jong at Ajax and helped him develop into one of the best midfielders in the world.
“He is always calm and always has the solution,” Ten Hag has previously said. “He scans so well that he always knows how to go forward. You can hardly put him under pressure – that is such a great gift.”
The Netherlands international completed a £65million move to Barcelona in 2019 and has made 139 appearances for the club, winning the Copa del Rey in 2021.
According to Spanish journalist Gerard Romero, Barcelona need to sell due to financial reasons and De Jong's move to United is 95% done.
United are in desperate need of new midfielders as Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic are set to leave on free transfers at the end of the season.
We've compared De Jong's 2021-22 La Liga stats to the corresponding Premier League stats of United's current central midfield options.
Note: we've only included Donny van de Beek's stats from his loan spell at Everton as he didn't start a single Premier League game for United in 2021-22.
Goals
Bruno Fernandes – 10
Fred – 4
Frenkie de Jong – 3
Scott McTominay – 1
Paul Pogba – 1
Nemanja Matic – 0
Donny van de Beek – 0
Assists
Paul Pogba – 9
Bruno Fernandes – 6
Nemanja Matic – 4
Fred – 4
Frenkie de Jong – 3
Scott McTominay – 1
Donny van de Beek – 0
Minutes per goal or assist
Paul Pogba – 135.5
Bruno Fernandes – 189.3
Fred – 245.1
Nemanja Matic – 346
Frenkie de Jong – 399.3
Scott McTominay – 1151.5
Donny van de Beek – N/A
Chances created per 90 minutes
Bruno Fernandes – 2.6
Frenkie de Jong – 1.6
Paul Pogba – 1.6
Fred – 1.2
Nemanja Matic – 0.9
Scott McTominay – 0.9
Donny van de Beek – 0.4
Successful dribbles per 90 minutes (success rate)
Paul Pogba – 2.6 (72.2%)
Frenkie de Jong – 1.9 (86.3%)
Scott McTominay – 1.4 (77.7%)
Nemanja Matic – 1.1 (78.5%)
Fred – 1.0 (58.8%)
Bruno Fernandes – 0.7 (46.6%)
Donny van de Beek – 0.6 (31.5%)
Passing accuracy
Frenkie de Jong – 91.3%
Nemanja Matic – 87.1%
Scott McTominay – 85.8%
Donny van de Beek – 84.9%
Fred – 84%
Paul Pogba – 83.5%
Bruno Fernandes – 78.5%
Successful tackles per 90 minutes (success rate)
Fred – 2.9 (53.7%)
Donny van de Beek – 2.5 (62.5%)
Scott McTominay – 2.4 (66.6%)
Nemanja Matic – 2.0 (66.6%)
Bruno Fernandes – 1.6 (45.7%)
Frenkie de Jong – 1.2 (74.9%)
Paul Pogba – 0.9 (37.5%)
Interceptions per 90 minutes
Nemanja Matic – 2.0
Fred – 1.5
Scott McTominay – 1.2
Donny van de Beek – 1.0
Paul Pogba – 0.9
Frenkie de Jong – 0.8
Bruno Fernandes – 0.5