Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
- Thread starter davidmichael
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He'd be my number one target if there was any chance of him becoming available. Sounds a very long shot though
Absolute dream signing. Very much doubt it will happen.
If De Jong comes, it'll be 2 signings at once. Because VDB will really shine again.
As good as he is, Beckenbauer is him on steroids. In possession, they're similar in how they la Pelopina turn under pressure and carry the ball forwards, but Beckenbauer was also God level defensively, with his passing, shooting and general reading of the game.
Be good to get him for like £80 million and someone like Kamara in a free. Instant improvement.
Awesome so Tchouameni and De Jong and we’ve rebuilt our midfield.
Won’t happen.
He is a key player at Barca. They won’t sell.
He is a key player at Barca. They won’t sell.
Now where have I heard this before
Doubt it will happen, Barca won't let him go, plus he will cost alot.
He's been in and out of the team, at least when I've seen them lately. They have Pedri and Gavi coming through.
Him this year.
de Ligt the next year.
Complimentary pieces around them and I think between them and ETH that is the spine for 6 years at least.
de Ligt the next year.
Complimentary pieces around them and I think between them and ETH that is the spine for 6 years at least.
They are broke af, they took out a big loan to get players in for a CL run on top of the rest of their debt they need to start recouping money
It's difficult to know how hampered he feels positionally at Barca. He's certainly begun to play well under Xavi so maybe he is willing to play in areas where he is slightly less effective than he can be as a cost of playing for his dream club.
Also, while he (probably) has a great relationship with EtH, it is also equally probable that he idolised Xavi during his formative years so we may not even have that personal advantage to offer him.
The only hope is that Barca seek to actively sell him to fund their transfer business but they will probably be able to do that by selling the likes of Depay and Lenglet and through dubious accounting measures. My guess is that he stays. Although I would also guess that Guardiola would be interested if he was put up for sale.
Also, while he (probably) has a great relationship with EtH, it is also equally probable that he idolised Xavi during his formative years so we may not even have that personal advantage to offer him.
The only hope is that Barca seek to actively sell him to fund their transfer business but they will probably be able to do that by selling the likes of Depay and Lenglet and through dubious accounting measures. My guess is that he stays. Although I would also guess that Guardiola would be interested if he was put up for sale.
Here's why I dont see de Jong signing for united
1. People here seem to massively misunderstand de Jong. He's not a DM. He doesn't tackle much and he takes a lot of touches. He actually needs a DM beside him. He plays much better when busquets is beside him. His best attribute is his progression through dribbling and a DM can't up and abandon his position. You'd need to sign a "sitter" to liberate him. And that'll cost a lot.
Another reason would be his unwillingness to come to united. His father said he doesn't like Manchester as a city cause of the weather. De Jong recently said he'd sign another 6 year deal if Barca offered it to him. It would take above 100m and enormous wages to get him to sign.
Lastly xavi absolutely loves him. Gavi is very talented but you see can see he's raw. Busquets is 34. He'll leave at the end of next season. And the notion that Barca dont need de Jong is ridiculous. Whenever he gets subbed they lose so much control and the ball just doesn't progress. He's absolutely crucial to Xavi's system.
1. People here seem to massively misunderstand de Jong. He's not a DM. He doesn't tackle much and he takes a lot of touches. He actually needs a DM beside him. He plays much better when busquets is beside him. His best attribute is his progression through dribbling and a DM can't up and abandon his position. You'd need to sign a "sitter" to liberate him. And that'll cost a lot.
Another reason would be his unwillingness to come to united. His father said he doesn't like Manchester as a city cause of the weather. De Jong recently said he'd sign another 6 year deal if Barca offered it to him. It would take above 100m and enormous wages to get him to sign.
Lastly xavi absolutely loves him. Gavi is very talented but you see can see he's raw. Busquets is 34. He'll leave at the end of next season. And the notion that Barca dont need de Jong is ridiculous. Whenever he gets subbed they lose so much control and the ball just doesn't progress. He's absolutely crucial to Xavi's system.
No. And let me explain.
In fact he is one of Xavi’s favourite and one of the first on the team sheet in the Gala XI.
Rotations are the reason he didn’t play every match as Xavi wanted him ready for the biggest matches. Frenkie and Frenkie have always been the preferred duo in midfield when no rotation were needed.
As promising as Gavi is at 17 is nowhere near Frenkie. Xavi values Frenkie very much.
Xavi loves him: “For me, Frenkie is a great player[...]He is happy here. "There are a lot of games, and we'll have to rotate in midfield as it's very demanding physically but he's important. He's playing at a very good level. He's very demanding on himself. He's a great professional and he'll keep improving.Now he looks comfortable, he isn't losing the ball, he's helping in defence, he's getting into the box, he's scoring goals. He's a player to be at Barca for many years."
Xavi: “Frenkie de Jong is a very complete player, he has endured very well and is very important for the team.”
Furthermore, Frenkie loves playing for the club, him and his gf absolute love the city. He is also on huge wages (of which Nike pays half).
With the restructuring of the debt, the deal with Spotify for shirt and stadium, the upcoming sleeve deal, the renegotiated CVC terms for a possible deal and the overall revenue getting back to where it was pre COVID-19 there is no financial pressure for Barca to sell. They are out of the Haaland sweepstakes.
They’ll buy players on the free and largely for the money they make from players leaving (Coutinho, Griezmann, Depay etc.)
Sincerely, unless you meet his release clause I very much doubt Frenkie is transferred to you.
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Incorrect. Not broke at all. Their revenue are getting back to normal; will only continue to get better. You’re following and old, uninformed narrative.
With the restructuring of the debt, the deal with Spotify for shirt and stadium, the upcoming sleeve deal, the renegotiated CVC terms for a possible deal and the overall revenue getting back to where it was pre COVID-19 there is no financial pressure for Barca to sell.
But you’re right: they’re broke and need to sell important players at all costs. Maybe send Barca the memo next time so they don’t go out and spend 55 million euros on a player (Ferran Torres) in the winter transfer window - when they obviously need to sell sell sell.
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Would love to have him, no way Barca will sell though.
Barca are on the verge of signing the CVC deal and have the spotify agreement in place. The only way they'd have sold key players was if top 4 didn't happen. And let me flip the question for you. There's a huge chance united don't play in the UCL next season. So why would de Jong agree to a move there? Surely going to city/PSG or staying put is a more attractive option, no?
I don't think it's 0% like say signing pedri, but it'll take something ridiculous. Something like 450k a week and north of a 150 mil.
Generally I want us to avoid massive money signings but given his evident talent, his age, our obvious needs in that position and ETH's previous experience working with him, he's one of the few players I would feel comfortable spending big on.
But he's probably not available.
But he's probably not available.
He would never say he's not in his plans will he? What players and managers say to the media rarely represents the truth.
If they want Rashford then Frenkie should be on the table.
Some of the criticism of him from the last few pages of his thread on a Barca forum:
I've already read their forum and I hope the club itself shares those opinions. For Barca, yes, he's underwhelming, but he's playing out of position to accommodate Busquets. For the Netherlands, in his proper position as the deepest midfielder, he is outstanding. If we sign him and play him there we'll be laughing.
Can he play as a DM in the double pivot of a 4231?
I really shouldn't do this to myself...
I really shouldn't do this to myself...
Huge fee, huge wages, moving from a big club where he hasn’t reached his potential. Have we learned nothing? Good player but I hope this is just lazy journalism due to the Dutch connection.
De Jong has to be the most overrated player on RedCafe. He is nowhere near as good as you people think and wasting £80 millions on a player of his quality is ridiculous.
Something some of those posters allude to in the comments above as well.
We talk about making better transfers and getting better value from transfers. Part of how you do that is targetting players who are underperforming currently relative to how you think they will perform in your team.
That underperformance could be statistical, as in spotting players who have been underperforming their underlying stats but who you believe will regress to the mean (Jota when he signed for Liverpool, for example). Or contextual, as in spotting players who don't fit the system at their current club but would fit yours.
Sorry but its not as if he's playing on a different third of the pitch. He is still playing in midfield. If he only excels in 1 single position of the pitch, and cannot he used semi effectively elsewhere, then he is hindrance.
The Barca fans know he is a good player, but they also know they won't see the best of him with Busquets there, and, with Gavi and Pedri, cashing in on him is something worth looking at.
He's still playing good stuff. He's not turned into Djemba-Djemba. It's just not the best use of him.
we've seen it first hand with Scholes. As a box to box midfielder, he was very good, but wasn't undroppable with Butt playing more than his fair share. Then he moved to the #10 position and stepped up a level. Then he transitioned into a DLP and became an all time great.
It's the same with De Jong. As an 8/box to box, he's still good, but, as a 6/DLP, he's great.
We should forget about him, unless Xavi is actively trying to offload him (which doesn't seem to be the case right now). Wonderful player and a great fit for a ten Hag led team obviously, but Barcelona are not very likely to sell even with talents like Pedri, Gavi, Torre, Nico — and Frenkie himself doesn't relish the prospect of playing in Manchester according to reports. Someone like Manuel Ugarte is adept at progressing the ball and could fulfill similar functions in a generalized sense (albeit not to the same level) and would be easier to acquire from Sporting CP; heck, the Primeira Liga as a whole is a real hotbed for midfielders right now with him, Vitinha, Fábio, Matheus and the likes.
I've mentioned Ugarte before. First saw a few years ago in a youth game against Brazil having tuned in for a similar type of 6 in Matheus Henrique. He was very good under pressure with his turns and ball carrying, but, for Sporting, he hasn't looked as classy and composed on the ball as he did then.
As far as 6s who are press resistant and tend to advance play with their ball carrying (Verratti, Arthur & De Jong being the elite 3), the midfielders I've identified of this ilk have all been struggling in recent years. Lobotka, Amrabat, Henrique, Ugarte, Leo Sena.
Darder is having a brilliant season, and he's of that ilk who can resist pressure with la Pelopina turns, and there's Arsenals Patino and our Galbraith who are of that ilk but haven't played football of this level yet.
400k a week. No thanks.
You mean the one amongst a few that they took out a loan for?
They have Billions in debt and whilst they are in a better position now than 9 months ago the need to get their ridiculously high earning players off the wage bill and take in cash injections from the sales of said players is a good platform to negotiate from.
it's really hard for me to understand De Jong as a player, even with the fact that I actually love him as a player.
As a DM he hasn't reached a level playing for us that guarantees he can take over Busquet's role because everyone knows we need to start phasing him out, even when we were playing De Jong as a DM Koeman (coaching Netherlands) was bashing our coach for playing him out of position, yet you have people in this topic talking about how his best level lately has been as a DM for the national team.
When he played for Ajax I've read dozens of opinions but if I have to believe a bunch of them, I'd choose that Schone was almost the de-facto DM but in a way that Ajax played with 3 players that doubled as box to box and DMs, only that Schone was the worst one at creating and therefore he used to play deeper, still in some situations De Jong, being more athletic, reached defensive positions faster than him, something that somehow has been happening for Barcelona in some games.
And lastly there's CM De Jong and, honestly, for us I thing he's been at his best under that role, he makes good runs into the area, he knows how to free himself to provide support as the 2nd man in combinations and he basically becomes a total player covering attack, defense and even wings duties but, obviously, as a player that's all around the pitch he looks great when the team performs good, and awful when we are bad, since you can see him failing or disappearing in multiple tasks in a single game.
From a Barcelona perspective, I'd love to mold him into a DM player on a midfield with Pedri and Kessie (with Gavi eventually taking over Kessie's spot), but I'm not 100% sure he'l eventually fit that role,. And since we could start next season with too many quality/prospect players in midfield (Nico, Busquets, De Jong, Gavi, Kessie, Pedri and potentially Pablo Torre getting minutes in the first team) I wouldn't rule out selling Frenkie for the same price we paid for him, or even higher, as a good piece of business, otherwise we lack either losing some of our youngest players or losing money on him if he eventually starts playing less.
For a top 5 midfielder in the world, not even in his prime yet, i'll take it. He'd be our best player anyway.
Get rid of the rotten apples and overpaid players, and there would be no issue.
We should definitely go for him if there is an opening.
If gag wants him, let's get him.
If gag wants him, let's get him.
This reads like this coming from Spanish sources. Maybe Barca think he's one they can get rid of with a good fee and get rid his high wages and not hurt the squad. They do need a Busquets replacement desperately and that isn't FDJ. Maybe they think that with Kessie, a Busquets replacement, Gavi, Nico and Pedri is more for less money and the squad overall is in a better shape. This big issue being that Barca is FDJ dream club and he won't want to leave. I think he would be very reluctant to come here even with EtH.
Didn't he only say recently in an interview if Barca gave him a contract for rest of his career he would sign it. Something along those lines.
We have 0% chance of getting him.
We have 0% chance of getting him.
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