Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap

Frenkie to United?


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FDJ is calling their bluff, it's so obvious. We wouldn't stay in that deal for 1 second if he or his agent made it clear that he doesn't want to move.
Reports are that we're in a game of poker. We will be "in the deal" until deadline day. No idea what triggers this deal actually happening, if anything.
 
Seems a lot of people are wondering whether De Jong is owed money, or what can be done, etc:

De Jong is currently under contract with Barcelona, to the tune of €90M over the next 4 seasons. Player sales, afaik, work like this: Selling club agree fee with buying club to terminate player existing contract. Player agree on new contract with buying club. Selling club and player agree to terminate existing contract.

In this saga, the last part is where things appear to have stalled. Barcelona cannot unilaterally terminate De Jong's contract. To do so they need his agreement. And said agreement costs €17M. I doubt De Jong gives a feck who actually pays him that money, as long as it is paid & does not impact his pending contract with Man Utd.

The problem is Barcelona and United can't seem to agree on how to go about paying said money
 
Lads. I'm zipping up for good now. It's been too much up and down lately. Now it stays up.

No transfer guru / twitter prophet will ever convince me to unzip for de Jong again.
 
Lads. I'm zipping up for good now. It's been too much up and down lately. Now it stays up.

No transfer guru / twitter prophet will ever convince me to unzip for de Jong again.

We both know that you are just one good tweet away from unzipping yet again.
 
Could FDJ not take Barcelona to court/an employment tribunal over these differed wages that they are refusing to pay him?

Especially when they have just spent over €100M euros on Raphinha & Lewandowski
 
It is funny how we have not heard a peep from Real Madrid or La Liga during this situation when they never shut up about our noisy neighbours and financial doping. I guess fiddling the books (levers) is not quite as bad for them.
 
Why exactly would they play him as a CB? Less chance of him being injured whilst still getting him some minutes maybe?
Or just a subliminal way of saying you aint wanted here haha
Because he can play CB. Did it for Ajax under Ten Hag too
 
At least he's training and keeping fit. From all that we've come to learn over this saga, it appears Barca are basically 2 consecutive bad seasons away from a proper financial meltdown. Wouldn't that just be beautiful to see?
 
Tricky one that though, as the interview with the new manager clearly showed he desperately wants him.
So if ETH tells the board that he wants FdJ and that Frankie wants to come because of the financial mess at Barça, what can the board say? No?

As frustrating as it is, we’re backing the manager.
Backing the manager is part of why we've been in such a big mess. Look at LvG with Di Maria, Depay, Mourinho with Lukaku, Ole with Maguire. We basically just let them tell us who they want and go all out for that player, usually paying way over the odds or missing out entirely (Sancho the first time round).

ETH has obviously worked with FDJ before, and he's a great player who fixes a big hole in our team, but is that enough to justify going down this all or nothing path again instead of the club identifying a list of good, available targets for our midfield and letting ETH go from there? I'm not sure.

I hope it's worth it but it's a huuuuge risk and there's still a chance we come out of it looking like total mugs.
 
Why exactly would they play him as a CB? Less chance of him being injured whilst still getting him some minutes maybe?
Or just a subliminal way of saying you aint wanted here haha
Has to be the latter. While he was at CB he got to watch the shiny new toys in his position.
 
Could FDJ not take Barcelona to court/an employment tribunal over these differed wages that they are refusing to pay him?

Especially when they have just spent over €100M euros on Raphinha & Lewandowski
No. He signed a contract, Barcelona aren't breaking it
 
Backing the manager is part of why we've been in such a big mess. Look at LvG with Di Maria, Depay, Mourinho with Lukaku, Ole with Maguire. We basically just let them tell us who they want and go all out for that player, usually paying way over the odds or missing out entirely (Sancho the first time round).

ETH has obviously worked with FDJ before, and he's a great player who fixes a big hole in our team, but is that enough to justify going down this all or nothing path again instead of the club identifying a list of good, available targets for our midfield and letting ETH go from there? I'm not sure.

Normally, I might agree. But who are the alternatives on the market?

Neves would cost a fortune and a totally different style of player, and I'm not convinced Tielemans is really that much better than guys like Fred.
 
Barca playing 4D chess here. They
This has been posted a good few times now, and yet people still ignore the revelation that they can afford to keep Frenkie and register all their new players for this season, and essentially gamble on getting back to CL finals to bring in more money going forward.

I don't think most of us are missing that, it just sounds like a god awful plan considering the quality of their squad and the quality of competition there is to be able to achieve these "get out of jail free" events. Its not a sustainable model for a club that is unlikely to massively increase their revenues again in the coming years. They will most likely come to the end of the upcoming season with no improvement and pressure to spend big again.
 
Normally, I might agree. But who are the alternatives on the market?

Neves would cost a fortune and a totally different style of player, and I'm not convinced Tielemans is really that much better than guys like Fred.
I mean, isn't that the job of our supposedly vast scouting network to figure out? Otherwise what's the fecking point of them.
 
Playing CB would be a fill in for him in the event of injuries. It's pre-season ffs...surely youth can be used at CBand FDJ in his favoured position?
 
Mentioned CL finals. By this is it the CL final or the elimination rounds?

Sounds weird I know but sometimes finals is referred to in the elimination stages. I think.. :lol:
 
It's not inconceivable that if he ends up staying Xavi might see him as a CB full time actually. Seems highly likely he plans to play with 3 CBs and they currently have 4, and Xavi is demanding another
 
Have we accepted a bid for Telles and are we trying to force him out of the club?
Telles is currently placing holding as a left footed centerback till Martinez joins up with the group after that he's surplus to requirement.
 
120m euros for a Leeds United winger and a 34 year old.
The new Barca ”value for money”.
Oh, and you got Chelsea’s reserve CB on a free whilst Madrid got the first team one.

And you’ve managed all of this by selling future revenue of 2bn + for about 500 mil. :lol:

I must be missing the value.

Just to make sure.
Have I summed up your impeccable logic below?

Raphinha is of course a Leeds winger. Just like De Bruyne is a Wolfsburg midfielder. You could argue for that Raphinha is a regular attacking starting player for Brazil and that multiple big clubs wanted him but that would surely be a stretch wouldn't it?
Lewandowski (together with Haaland) has not been the most prolific goalscorer in the world for the last three years and he has not been the best player overall. He is just an average 34 year old.
Christensen for free is a bad deal because Real Madrid got Rudiger.
The future revenue selling was made just for the three transfers above and not for rebuilding Camp Nou and paying off debt. And even if it weren't that would still affect the value for money for your transfers.


De Jongs price is going to be between £72m-90m and you're probably prepared to pay it. That is not going to be as good value for the money as the three transfers above.
 
Or you can actually google and see where the money comes from.
Barca took huge financially risks and got punished a couple of years ago. Messis monster wage , Coutinho, Dembélé and Griezmann were three megatransfers that all backfired. It was an unacceptable risk to take imo but to be fair no one saw covid-19 coming did they? There are a lot of whining here about Barcas advantages but since LaLiga has a salary cap it limits Barcas action in a manner that the oilclubs/US laughing stock owners don't have to think about and covid-19 made that real obvious.

Barca has made a great transfer window when it comes to value for the money (you can just compare it for what United has got for their money the last five years of transfer) and in the short term I can't see anything leading to short term financial problems. It is just odd that people look at the debt figure without taking into account Barcas team value and exceptional positioning for creating revenue. As it has been presented Barcas current strategy is the right one imo. They have secured short and longterm financing for that strategy and uses the money to invest wisely instead of overpaying stars.
In the thread people also forget that Coutinho has been sold to Aston Villa and Griezmann extended his loan to Atletico Madrid. They were two of the best paid players in the world.

Barcas concern is now mainly about meeting LaLigas salary cap. I'm pretty sure De Jong has to leave to solve this even if it would be very important for Barca to keep him if we just consider what's good for the teams strength. But it is obvious that Barca has been counting on moving De Jong and some more players, Depay, Umtiti, and Pjanic probably being the first ones to come to mind, before the transfer window closes. According to my sources that would mean freeing up 50m/year just in wages and without weakening the team (except for De Jong).
Barca agreed a fee with united for a player who doesn't want to leave (for whatever reason). That is awkward as hell. There is no way to defend this shitshow.
 
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