Manchester United are looking to bolster their midfield ahead of the 2022-23 campaign and new manager Erik ten Hag is reportedly desperate to sign Barcelona player Frenkie De Jong.
According to a report in AS, De Jong has already emptied out his locker at Barca’s training ground, such is his certainty that he’ll be on the move.
The stumbling block for now, however, is the fee. The Guardian reports that Barcelona rejected United’s initial offer of €60million last week, but that the Old Trafford club are still confident that Barcelona bosses will lower their initial asking price of €85million.
If they can get the deal done, it would make their new manager very happy. Ten Hag 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 140 appearances for the club, winning the Copa del Rey in 2021.
United are in desperate need of new midfielders as Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic left 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
Donny van de Beek – 1
Assists
Bruno Fernandes – 6
Fred – 4
Frenkie de Jong – 3
Scott McTominay – 1
Donny van de Beek – 0
Minutes per goal or assist
Bruno Fernandes – 195.0
Fred – 254.5
Frenkie de Jong – 414.3
Donny van de Beek – 484
Scott McTominay – 1196.5
Chances created per 90 minutes
Bruno Fernandes – 2.6
Frenkie de Jong – 1.6
Fred – 1.2
Scott McTominay – 0.9
Donny van de Beek – 0.5
Successful dribbles per 90 minutes (success rate)
Frenkie de Jong – 1.8 (81.8%)
Scott McTominay – 1.4 (77.8%)
Fred – 0.9 (56.3%)
Bruno Fernandes – 0.7 (63.6%)
Donny van de Beek – 0.7 (38.9%)
Passing accuracy
Frenkie de Jong – 91.3%
Scott McTominay – 85.6%
Fred – 84.1%
Donny van de Beek – 78.8%
Bruno Fernandes – 78.3%
Successful tackles per 90 minutes (success rate)
Fred – 2.8 (52.8%)
Donny van de Beek – 2.7 (65.9%)
Scott McTominay – 2.4 (66.7%)
Bruno Fernandes – 1.6 (47.1%)
Frenkie de Jong – 1.3 (76.5%)
Interceptions per 90 minutes
Fred – 1.4
Scott McTominay – 1.2
Donny van de Beek – 1.1
Frenkie de Jong – 0.7
Bruno Fernandes – 0.5