After confirming Tenhag as the team's official manager for the new season, the next top priority for the United hierarchy is to rebuild the squad, which includes cleaning up + reinforcements. In terms of clean-up, several players whose contracts expired beat to confirm their departure, and several other players who were not in the Tenhag plan or who had the intention of leaving the team needed to be sold. In terms of reinforcements, Tenhag wants to strengthen a lot of positions, basically except for the goalkeeper, there is a possibility of shuffling in every position, but the most critical of them is the midfield.
Due to the fact that Pogba and Jesse Lingard will not be renewed when their contracts expire, Nemanja Matic has one year left on his contract, but he has left the team since the announcement of the season. Therefore, Teng's Red Devils Iron will definitely appear in the midfield.
There have been many rumors before, and the more popular names include Deklan Rice, Ruben Neves, Joan Ameni and so on. Earlier, Spain's Daily Sport newspaper reported a new name , Frankie De Jong. Tenhag will have a budget of more than 250 million euros, with Barca midfielder Frankie De Jong being his prime target, the media said.
De Jong is not the first time that he has passed on a scandal with Manchester United, but not many people have cared about such rumors before. But after Tenhag confirmed the arrival of Manchester United, this rumor reappeared, so how trustworthy is it?
If Tenhag is determined to restructure the Manchester United midfielder, it is natural to set his sights on the old division. So far, de Jong's highest career performance has been under Tenhag. In other words, Tenghag may really hold De Jong's "instruction manual". In the 2018-19 season, De Jong made 53 appearances and 52 starts on all fronts for Ajax, playing at the level of a Champions League MVP midfielder. In addition, Manchester United also have De Jong's former midfield partner van der Beek in Ajax, and the 2 are expected to spark again.
But we can see that after joining Barca for 86 million euros, De Jong's performance has not actually met expectations. The reason why there were transfer rumors before was precisely for this reason. Although De Jong's performance has picked up after Harvey's arrival, there is still a gap between the peak state of Ajax.
As for Barca, the title race this season has basically disappeared. With the current configuration of the team, if it wants to compete for the title next season and make a difference in the Champions League, the summer window will definitely continue to increase its efforts to strengthen, and it is obviously not enough to count on Casey and Christensen who were previously exempted from the contract. But Barca's economic pressure is there, with limited budgets. To strengthen, they have to sell players to raise money, and De Jong is their most valuable asset.
So if United can really offer Tenhag 250 million+ in reinforcements, then he certainly has the potential to consider de Jong, who has worked happily before. In the eyes of Barca's executives, De Jong is not a non-sale product, and the salary is also high. Ken will not sell mainly depends on manchester United's offer, if the opening price meets the psychological expectations, everything is possible.
As for the media saying that De Jong wants to prove himself at Barca, this idea is understandable. However, if the two clubs agree on the transfer fee level, and Tenhag personally invites, I believe de Jong will also consider it. From now until the transfer window opens, there will be a lot of rumors, let's wait and see.