Manchester United should “do everything” in their power to sign Frenkie de Jong in the summer transfer window, according to Rene Meulensteen.
United spent last summer chasing De Jong, who was Erik ten Hag’s number-one transfer target. The 26-year-old ended up staying at Barcelona, with United instead signing Casemiro and Christian Eriksen to bolster their ranks in midfield.
However, the speculation has restarted ahead of the upcoming transfer window, which could see Barca offload a whole host of stars. The Catalan club have been told by LaLiga that they must free up £178million from their budget before they can sign new players, opening up the possibility of De Jong being sold.
Meulensteen worked as Sir Alex Ferguson’s assistant at United for six years and he believes Ten Hag is right to be pursuing the Netherlands international. Speaking to United’s Scandinavian supporters' club, he said: “They need a really good midfield player.
“Yes, they’ve got Casemiro in there. You’ve got Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes – a lot of experience, a lot of qualities – but there’s also a little bit of a vulnerability because their mindsets are predominantly in going forward.
“I would 100 per cent do everything to get De Jong. He’s got energy, he’s got legs, he’s tactically very, very good in the build-up.
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“For De Jong, I think to be fairly honest, he would have already been here if he had not been happy at Barcelona. But he’s obviously very happy playing for Barcelona otherwise he would have said, ‘Okay, no problem, sort me out’ because there’s always a way to fill that financial gap. That can never be the reason. But I can see why Ten Hag is chasing him.”
Barca may be on a high right now, after securing the LaLiga trophy on Saturday, but they have lots of problems to deal with too. The club is riddled with debts estimated to be in excess of £1bn and LaLiga chief Javier Tebas has warned them about breaches of Financial Fair Play rules.
They pulled “economic levers” earlier this season, but action is needed to address the hole in their finances. “Barcelona doesn’t have any room in its budget to spend in the upcoming transfer window,” Tebas said in March. “We have ruled that they can no longer sign more players.”
De Jong is happy at Barca, where he has enjoyed playing under Xavi Hernandez, but the situation could be out of his hands. "The club was in a difficult situation,” he told Dutch outlet NOS of the links to United last summer.
“They were able to sell me for a big fee, and they wanted to do this, but I did not want to leave so I stayed. If everything goes well for me and for the club, then I want to stay here for as long as possible. Manchester United already spoke with Barcelona despite the fact that I wanted to stay here."
