Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap

Frenkie to United?


  • Total voters
    2,033
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
It's obvious we are not his first choice. It's been Barca all along, and if not he would rather wait for one of the bigger clubs like City, Bayern, PSG etc to come for him.

He is no hurry, he will play the World Cup anyway no matter which position Barca plays him in.

Of any of those clubs or Chelsea came in actual offers, instead of us, I reckon he'd have been gone a long time ago and would be enjoying pre season with his new club. I don't believe that his wages are as big an issue as they look, think it's a case of him just not wanting to join us.
 
That’s not a statement with any value. System players are also all-time greats. And systems are catered to [some] players to enable them to thrive - there is no set rule a player has to be universally eclectic to make a huge mark on the game and in history.
It is. He will not achieve half of what everyone is still earmarking him for. Let's be honest, he is 25, not 21. He has spent three seasons at Barca and achieved.......very little. If he has another couple of seasons not winning anything, he'll be in his late twenties.....
 
It's obvious we are not his first choice. It's been Barca all along, and if not he would rather wait for one of the bigger clubs like City, Bayern, PSG etc to come for him.

He is no hurry, he will play the World Cup anyway no matter which position Barca plays him in.
So you aren’t going to sign a player for United unless we are their first choice?
 


Literally 30 mins ago :lol: Also pretty much every report for the last month and a half has emphasised that he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, but don't let that bother you. Continue to dream by all means

Just out of curiosity, do you ever walk into the bookies and shout at the punters to tell them they ain’t gonna win and then pop next door to the restaurant and tell everyone they will get fat eating that?
 
:lol: I can't believe posters actually believe United would ever confirm that De Jong doesn't want to sign.

There's unreal delusion on show in this thread. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Now it's time to start asking what the plan actually is because the weakest and possibly most important part of the team is going to be neglected once again. I wouldn't have minded if we have some of our youngsters a shot but it looks like they're all being loaned out.

Yeah, have to say this has been a pretty atrocious window so far given the state the squad is in, coming off the back of last season, and providing our new manager with the necessary tools. All this during the big culture shift away from Woodward/Glazers past, it looks horribly familiar.

Right now we have got Eriksen in on a free, Martinez at a price higher than initially quoted and a backup LB. All in a summer where we have lost all our experienced CMs and potentially our only out-and-out striker.

If there's not a huge end to this window, it's hard to see how ETH catches any of the teams who finished above us with what he has.
 
:lol: I can't believe posters actually believe United would ever confirm that De Jong doesn't want to sign.

There's unreal delusion on show in this thread. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Now it's time to start asking what the plan actually is because the weakest and possibly most important part of the team is going to be neglected once again. I wouldn't have minded if we have some of our youngsters a shot but it looks like they're all being loaned out.

It isn't this first time this has happened though. We've chased Griezmann, Dybala, Sancho etc. for large parts of a transfer window in the recent past, only for it to end up stalling and not getting anywhere. This isn't some isolated incident. Not getting Frenkie is annoying but what will be worse is if we've wasted all this time only for us to have no backup options.

For the record, I'm of the opinion that he has very little interest in joining us but I still wouldn't be surprised if it does end up happening. Only because Barca are desperate for him to go and we will be desperate to make it happen as it will look terrible from a PR perspective if we spent months chasing a player who we couldn't convince to join.
 
It's not.
Where Haaland is expensive for City is in wages, not in the relatively modest transfer fee.

If Raiola made 27m from Pogba, you can be sure he made more on Haaland, hence why the Dortmund deal with a low release was set up that way.
Haaland and his Dad brought in Raiola to ensure they also got similar pieces of that pie.
Agent fee, Dad fee and signing fee will have been through the roof.
 
Obviously not. Cause journalists are trying to create news for clickbait. If Frenkie had said that in public or to ETH we would have moved on.
Well no, apparently people are convinced now that ETH is going after de Jong regardless. Not sure how people can come to that conclusion, as we moved on from Timber and Brobbey quickly after finding out they didn't want to come.
 
Fair points but are Barca really that much better than United? Of the 2 clubs only one was knocked out in the group stages of last seasons CL and it wasn't United.

I agree Barca offer more of a guarantee of CL football but that is as much a function of the weakness of the opposition in La Liga, they would really have to screw up not to get top 4 as the drop off from themselves and Real Madrid to the rest of the league is enormous. Would actually be quite funny to see the Saudis rock up and buy a couple of La Liga sides so they can experience the joys of oil clubs as we have over the last 15 years.

He may like Xavi but even last season he was complaining that he was not being played in his preferred role and this was impacting his performances and now Xavi is telling him not only will he not be the deepest midfielder but he won't be in midfield at all as he is know a back up CB. I doubt he is enjoying that very much.

Two things we know for certain

1. Barca have no intention of keeping him on his current salary
2. Frenkie has no intention of taking a pay cut

It all points to a divorce however slow and messy and the whole issue of does he then come to United ultimately comes down to the fact that nobody else is actually interested in buying him right now no matter how hard Barca fluffer accounts try to wish Chelsea interest into existence.
probably worth him being patient re his preferred position, isn’t Busquets off to MLS next year. His position to lose then surely
 
Dembele, Raphina, Lewandowski, Frenkie, Pedri, Busquets, Kessie, Araujo will definitely start for us. How many of our players start for them? Sancho?
Dembele and Raphinha don't get in over Sancho and if Rashford is back to pre last season form, don't get in over him. IMO. Araujo is debatable too, though I don't watch enough. Our midfield is admittedly shite, though Bruno would start for them as their most advanced midfielder I've got little doubt there. And as shite as our fullbacks are, they are still better than Barca's non existent current fullbacks for me.

Most importantly though, you get the coach. Xavi is a nobody as a coach and nothing to suggest he is anything special. Ten Hag has plenty backing up that he is in fact a special coach.
 
Obviously not. Cause journalists are trying to create news for clickbait. If Frenkie had said that in public or to ETH we would have moved on.

Early reports on this were that, first Frenkie wasn't interested, then that he might be intrigued after conversation with ETH. Then there were reports that ETH believed he could be convinced. I think some posters forget this as they speak as though he's been desperate to join, when that's not the case.

And for all we know he could have told ETH at any time in the last weeks/month that he's not interested and we've moved on. We won't officially announce it like some think, for obvious reasons. Either we'll just hear nothing and the window will close or we'll spend the money on another player.
 


How many times does he need to tell us to feck off.

All this 'we wouldn't chase him for 2 months...' business.....erm yes we would we're fecking useless. Took us months to sign a free signing in Eriksen we are clueless.
 
Funnily enough this was always the line from Spain wasn't it?

The line from England, via the Manchester press pack, has always been that United were confident it will happen, its all about monies owed blah, blah, blah. However, the press in Spain has been categorical that De Jong doesn't want to join Man Utd pretty much from the get go.

I don't blame United for trying to get De Jong. I imagine Ten Hag has told the club that De Jong could be crucial to making his system a success. Lord knows De Jong's a much better connecting midfielder than anyone currently at the club.

All things considered De Jong probably doesn't want to leave. A lot of players have been forced out of clubs before. Wesley Sneijder didn't want to leave Madrid, got forced out won a treble with Inter a year later. I can appreciate why United would be patient if the club feels, ultimately, we'll be the only out for De Jong in the end. Whether his heart is in it or not we need his skillset. So I get it...

...I just hope that we also have an appropriate plan B.

This is where I think he who shall not be named (or lese you risk derailing the whole thread) had a point.

When scouting players we need to identify people for whom Man Utd is the next logical step in their careers. Malacia, Martinez, Eriksen, in each case United was the obvious choice and an obvious bigger stage than the one they played on last season. Its similar to the way Sir Alex did it when building his last great side: Van der Saar from Fulham, Vidic from Red Star, Evra from Monaco, Carrick from Spurs, Ronaldo from Sporting, Rooney from Everton, Saha from Fulham. All of those players saw it as a step up for them, even though they were joining the club at the time when Mourinho's Chelsea was at its strongest, cos of the clubs they joined from.

Contrast this with trying to get players out of Barcelona...even if we think United are bigger there's always going to be a lot of players who don't. Especially when we haven't won a league for 10 years.

I'm hoping, at the end of the day, Barca tries to shove De Jong out of the door and we're there to scoop him up. However, I really do hope we've got a plan B in mind.

This has been my problem with it from the start, we clearly don't and ETH essentially said as much. FDJ can't be shoved out the door if he decides to just take the massive amount of money he's owed regardless of how much Barca want to sell him because he has a legal contract for another 4 years. FDJ is a brilliant player but if he wasn't interested in coming, which he never seemed to be and certainly by now it should be very obvious he has no interest in joining, we should have other options. ETH doesn't seem to want to use our scout network and also doesn't appear to know any other players himself that can play FDJ's role. Leaves us screwed basically.
 
It is. He will not achieve half of what everyone is still earmarking him for. Let's be honest, he is 25, not 21. He has spent three seasons at Barca and achieved.......very little. If he has another couple of seasons not winning anything, he'll be in his late twenties.....
You’re contradicting yourself here; he’s a system player, yet is not being catered for… how can that realise his potential?

Barcelona bought badly if they had no intention of optimising him and instead forcing him into their highly stylised box.

It’s a common mistake clubs make and it’s bizarre when any of them do it - not just Barca - as you’re buying a talent and then deviating from his strengths, which is pointless.

You buy a system player, you cater to him; you buy an eclectic player, you can drop into whatever system you have, but even that generally has its limits.
 
Automatic ban for the 14.4% of non-believers. On the other hand, special tag ( promotion) for the believers. All this is subject to whatever happens before the 1st of September.

Only fair then to ban those who believe if the transfer doesn't happen then yeah? Good
 
He'll stall as long as he can and he'll stay, they'll cut the salaries of other players, La liga will close their eyes, they'll be magically under the salary cap, somehow, we'd have wasted 3 months chasing a player that had absolutely no intention of coming here and Berbaclass will cry.

Sorry for spoiling the ending.
 
Are you sure?

And if he decides to stay without agreeing new terms, the abuse and alienation he’ll get will surely be moving toward unprecedented levels. You have to wonder how that would unfold.
Sure is such a strong word, but he seemed to be basing it mostly on press coverage.
 
Dembele and Raphinha don't get in over Sancho and if Rashford is back to pre last season form, don't get in over him. IMO. Araujo is debatable too, though I don't watch enough. Our midfield is admittedly shite, though Bruno would start for them as their most advanced midfielder I've got little doubt there. And as shite as our fullbacks are, they are still better than Barca's non existent current fullbacks for me.

Most importantly though, you get the coach. Xavi is a nobody as a coach and nothing to suggest he is anything special. Ten Hag has plenty backing up that he is in fact a special coach.

Dembélé and Sancho would be the pairing the others have no chance at all.
 
How many times does he need to tell us to feck off.

All this 'we wouldn't chase him for 2 months...' business.....erm yes we would we're fecking useless. Took us months to sign a free signing in Eriksen we are clueless.
If this would be real, his agent would have shared that information with the board and ETH. Not with a random sports reporter. This all looks like FDJ is salty and wants his owned wages, bonus, etc, which is fair and square.
 
Yep, think this one is over guys.

We can chase a player for months with zero indication from the player or his party that he wants to join. It was the same when we were linked with Fabregas and Sneijder.
 
In fairness would you want to move from Spain to Manchester? I love Manchester but I would emigrate in a heart beat
 
FYlig3SWQAETD2J


Note how the author's opinion that "De Jong is likely to share Cristiano Ronaldo's view on playing in the Europa League this season" has turned into " Frenkie does not want to play in the Europa League" being reported all over now.
 
You’re contradicting yourself here; he’s a system player, yet is not being catered for… how can that realise his potential?

Barcelona bought badly if they had no intention of optimising him and instead forcing him into their highly stylised box.

It’s a common mistake clubs make and it’s bizarre when any of them do it - not just Barca - as you’re buying a talent and then deviating from his strengths, which is pointless.

You buy a system player, you cater to him; you buy an eclectic player, you can drop into whatever system you have, but even that generally has its limits.
Really simple, if he needs an entire system of ten other players to get something out of him, he's not every that great a player.
 


Literally 30 mins ago :lol: Also pretty much every report for the last month and a half has emphasised that he doesn't want to leave Barcelona, but don't let that bother you. Continue to dream by all means

  1. No, he doesn't want to leave Barcelona. Beckham didn't want to leave United, Sanchez didn't want to leave Barca, Fabregas didn't want to leave Barca, Di Maria didn't want to leave Madrid, etc. It happens. At the end of the day, if they are no longer key, they will leave to be key players elsewhere.
  2. Him not wanting to leave Barca doesn't mean that he doesn't want to join United. Very big distinction. If he has to leave Barca, then all signs (i.e, all actual reputable people on this issue) point to him in fact being open to joining United and Ten Hag.
  3. The only relevant people to listen to on this are Whitwell/Mitten/Ornstein for the United slant on things, and then Romero for the Barcelona slant on things. Nobody else knows anything new, they're all extrapolating or rephrasing in their own way or speculating. Fabrizio might get some agent info on the case, but that's it. No reporter would release some information as just drip fed and hidden in a random article, it would be a headline of "REPORT - FRENKIE REJECTS UNITED" and all the others repeating that. So let's stop reading too much into how one random side reporter on the case phrases the issue on the day to get clicks, as that's all it is.
 
So, who is really the head muppet?
I‘m hoping this will start off a blood bath.

@Judas was driving the Sancho train two years ago. It went off of the rails a bit at the end of Summer 2020 but as soon as the window of 21 opened the man was firing on all cylinders again.
 
Not a single journalist even remotely connected to Chelsea has uttered a word about De Jong to Chelsea.

I don't think there's much to report yet. Wasn't it Tuchel that thought he'd signed him at PSG before Barca came in? Given the age of some of your midfielders, I could definitely see you getting interested. Along with PSG and Bayern. Nobody will step into this shit show though until the is a clear indication that he'll leave.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.