@Kaglish10 mentioned Donny Van De Beek as a possible acquisition in the #6 role. He's still very young and will be turning 22 later this month. I don't know too much about him, but he seems to be a very good footballer with good passing and very mobile from the video below. He's also press resistant and has played very well for Ajax in the UCL. What's your opinion on him
@Ajaxsuarez ?
Hopefully
@Devil may care approves..
He hasn't (been allowed to) develop(ed) into the player I've always seen in him. He's a hard worker with a really good functional technique and good passing range, who could have been a fantastic box-to-box midfielder or just proper central midfielder, which is also how he first properly found his way into the team taking Schöne's place in a number of games under Bosz.
Unfortunately the summer after that season Klaassen left, and with that being the spot available and Donny being a hardworking blonde Dutch midfielder, he increasingly got shoehorned more and more into the exact Klaassen, a far more football-technically limited player, role.
He's been played as a sort of second striker, Müller type 10 all season and I think he definitely has a lot of tactical value in that role in how his movement pulls defenders (see his runs for the RM away goals) and midfielders (see how he completely exploited Martinez in Bayern away) out of position, but it's really limited his influence on the ball and his development as a more complete player.
So no, he's definitely not a Matic replacement, in his current version anyway.
To actually touch on his abilities and limitations:
Positives: great in short combinations, inventive in how he creates chances both on and off the ball, functionally good with his weak foot, can finish (though seemingly not too good in proper striker type 1 on 1 chances), can press very well, has an aggression in him though imo he's not actually made steps in that aspect since becoming a first team player, surprisingly skillful at times in small space though othertimes seems a bit clunky.
Negatives: His "action" radius has just become way too small. It's partly the role and position he's played in, as a 10 with two midfielders behind him he tends to either receives the ball in very busy areas, often not with the play ahead of him, or out wide when he's drifted there. As a result, he really mainly operates in max 5-10 radius around him in his passing, running with the ball, but also in his defensive pressing, he sort of leads the press in the midfield and so it's very short distances he is actually involved at any time. Hard to explain what I mean by this, but take De Jong, he tracks opposition over 20-40 metres, dribbles and passing over a similar distance. Donny's qualities should have been more in that sort of direction, as a Gerrard type player, but instead he's a player that I think few teams would use beyond tactical motivations.
I think I've just written some entirely unhelpful, uninteresting to anyone not an Ajax supporter, nonsense here, but basically he's not United quality and unless he makes big steps in a new role is unlikely to ever come particularly close. I really really really like him and want him to do well but unfortunately he's looking more limited than I had hoped he would turn out.
I actually really hope that Ten Hag decides to switch back to a system with a 6 instead of a 10 next season or if not moves van de Beek back to take De Jong's vacancy in the "double pivot"(or whatever you wanna call it) and then let's see how he develops
Always good to see another option at least mate.