Barca draw pushes Frenkie de Jong closer to Man Utd transfer
FT Desk
- 13 Oct 2022 02:23 CDT
- 3 min read
Manchester United's chances of recruiting Frenkie de Jong have never looked better after Barcelona's Champions League blunder against Inter Milan.
Man Utd were pursuing De Jong all summer. New manager Erik ten Hag was desperate to be reunited with his former Ajax midfield metronome, and Barca were happy to cash in on one of their most saleable assets amid their financial crisis.
But De Jong didn't want to go anywhere.
"I always wanted to stay at Barcelona, and this is why I always remained calm in the summer," he later explained.
"I can't give too [many] details away. But look, the club has its own ideas and I have my own ideas too. And sometimes this clashes with each other. But at the end of the day things went okay."
Man Utd's Frenkie de Jong scoring for Barcelona 😉pic.twitter.com/FcCqI3ZRyV
— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) August 25, 2022
The problem for Barcelona now is that things haven't been going ok.
De Jong was joined at Camp Nou this summer by a litany of new players, the club spending €150 million on Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde, while Andreas Christensen, Franck Kessie, Hector Bellerin and Marcos Alonso were picked up on frees.
Each of those Bosman arrivals cost signing on fees and wages, though, and even if Barca had activated "financial levers" to stave off oblivion, a lengthy Champions League campaign was seen as a minimum requirement for the new ensemble.
On the brink
But that mission is now hanging by a thread. Barcelona were held to a 3-3 draw by Inter at Camp Nou on Wednesday and are now third in Group C with two games to play. If Inter beat Viktoria Plzen in two weeks, Barca are out.
Xavi was already resigned to the club needing to make a big sale next summer to balance the books, and a season of missing out on Champions League income makes that an inevitability.
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United still want to De Jong, even if they spent €80m on Real Madrid's Casemiro this summer. The Brazilian has a different profile from the Dutchman, though, and they could comfortably play alongside each other.
The Red Devils are also on an upward trajectory and might be able to offer De Jong Champions League football next season too. Not that they need it, financially…
