After weeks of frustration, Manchester United finally made some breakthroughs in the summer transfer window on Tuesday.
The news that United have finally agreed an initial fee of £56million with Barcelona for their midfielder Frenkie De Jong was music to the ears of the club’s supporters. The fact it was followed by reports that they had also sealed a £14m deal to land Feyenoord defender Tyrell Malacia made it a fantastic day for the club.
De Jong is undoubtedly the most exciting and important arrival of the two. The Dutch midfielder was earmarked as Erik ten Hag’s priority in the off-season and will go a long way to filling the hole created by the departures of Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic.
Ten Hag knows all about the talents of De Jong, having coached him for two successful years at Ajax. He knows all about his positional intelligence, his skill on the ball and his incisive passing. The hope is that De Jong will become the centrepiece of the new-look, Dutch-influenced United side.
Mirror Football understands that De Jong will sign a five-year contract worth £250,000 per week once he touches down at Old Trafford, while performance-related add-ons could take the total cost of the deal to £70m. That is a hugely significant outlay which would put him fifth on the club’s all-time transfer list, behind Pogba, Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho and Romelu Lukaku.
At 25, and with vast amounts of top-level experience already under his belt at Ajax and Barca, United will be confident that De Jong will not follow the pathway of those signed for similarly high fees in their recent history. Of course, there are no guarantees that the Netherlands international will hit the ground running, even under Ten Hag’s guidance. But there is one way they could increase his chances of success: buying him a midfield partner.
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United have undergone quite the clearout in midfield this summer, with Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard following Pogba and Matic out of the door, while Andreas Pereira could be on his way to newly-promoted side Fulham . It can be argued that, even with De Jong as a marquee signing, United are light on quality in central positions.
Currently, Ten Hag will be able to call upon Fred, Scott McTominay and Donny van de Beek, or youngsters James Garner and Hannibal Mejbri, as possible partners for De Jong next season. After last season’s miserable campaign, it’s plain to see that those players are not up to the task. They need back up.
United must prove they have learned from their failures in central midfield. Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in May 2013, the club has brought in 11 midfielders . Of those, only a handful – Mata, Matic, Ander Herrera, Bruno Fernandes – can even broadly be considered to be successes. Most have been expensive mistakes.
With such a giant gap to close between the Premier League ’s best sides, United cannot afford any more Marouane Fellainis or Morgan Schneiderlins. Mirror Football understands that, once De Jong and Malacia are over the line, United will turn their attention to landing a versatile forward in the summer transfer window.
That is undoubtedly a worthy pursuit. But it must not come at the expense of further midfield additions. United have offered a one-year deal , with the option of a further 12 months, to Christian Eriksen. Yet, even if they beat Brentford to his signature, the need for another midfielder remains.
De Jong is a deep-lying midfielder with a real eye for a pass. But he is not a tenacious ball-winning midfielder who can be relied upon to win back possession and launch attacks. Having spent the past few seasons watching Fred and McTominay play as a pair, how many United fans believe they already have the players to get the best out of De Jong?
If United really want to start a revival under Ten Hag’s management then another, more defensively-minded midfielder, is needed to make the most of their marquee summer signing.
