What is top traffic! According to UEFA's offensive and defensive data, the first leg of Barça's Europa League play-off match with Manchester United reached 116 million, which is nearly 2.5 times that of the match between Paris and Bayern (47 million).
Under the super high attention, the player will also be put into the magnifying glass. The glorious Rashford won numerous applause, but in contrast, Ten Hag's beloved De Jong was pinched. Despite his positive play, he revealed his technical shortcomings.
01. De Jong is highly motivated on the defensive end: The problem is poor awareness of positioning
a. Why did De Jong hit a double back? He needs to have "defensive freedom"
As can be seen from the starting line-up, Barca actually posed a combination of De Jong and Kessie at the back.
However, Araujo went to the right wing, and Conde changed to the central defender, resulting in a weakening of the central defender's front top and recovery ability, and if the back is wrong, it may cause more trouble.
De Jong's confrontational attitude on the defensive end is actually quite good, and he gradually has a certain "sweeping ability". This time Christensen defended Marcus Rashford and followed him to the wing. De Jong moved sideways and broke the ball strongly.
De Jong's problem is that he has poor position selection and spatial awareness, and having teammates to fill him in under the double back system allows him to "randomly" look for opportunities to fight and break the ball.
b. De Jong's poor sense of space: more average selection and defensive selection
First, let's take a closer look at De Jong's defensive breakdown. De Jong has 15 of his 28 games this season. Among them, the number of tackles in the defensive three areas is only 8, which is less than Busquets and Pedri in midfield, ranking 7th in the team.
Because De Jong's main upper tackle area is the middle part of the pitch, and De Jong's number of blocks (including blocking shots and blocking passes) is only 5, of which 0 are blocked shots. This actually shows that De Jong is not good at rescue and is more suitable for "sweeping".
Barca's first goal was conceded, and De Jong's problems on the defensive end were exposed. He needs teammates with a double back, not to say teammates to complete confrontation or defense, but teammates to complete a more reasonable position.
When De Jong dragged behind and Casey was in front, he faced his opponent and counterattacked, not to move closer to the central defender to protect the space, but to want to go forward, only to be caught by Fred in the back space.
It was De Jong's mistake to let Fred have the ball, but the main responsibility for this conceded goal lies with goalkeeper Ter Stegen (although he played well throughout the game, saving two key goals in the first half).
Alonso followed in the chase, despite his speed disadvantage, forcing Rashford to a small angle. The goalkeeper missed a low flat shot from the near corner, which was a huge mistake.
02. Manchester United presses Barca back: De Jong makes consecutive mistakes
a. Ten Hag knows De Jong: Manchester United presses Barca at the back
From the statistics, it can be seen that Manchester United are at a disadvantage except for surpassing Barca in tackles and regaining the ball.
This time the high ball fell down, Barca protected the drop at the same time with both backs, and Kessie broke the ball Westhorst.
However, when De Jong then took the ball, Manchester United's Fred and B Fei snatched at the same time, and De Jong had no choice but to lose the ball. He wanted to tackle the tackle, but he was fouled and sent a free-kick up front to Manchester United.
Looking at the offensive and defensive conversion this time, it is still De Jong who wants to protect the ball but unfortunately fails, and is counterattacked by the opponent on the spot.
Marcus Rashford's cross failed, but he was given a chance from a corner. Manchester United also took advantage of this corner kick opportunity to successfully complete the 2-1 comeback.
In the subsequent corner defense, Barca fell 2-1 down because of Conde's own goal.
The problem is that after Rafinha was passed by Marcus Rashford, only Roberto was facing the attacking players, and the others did not have time to turn around.
When Aaron Wan-Bissaka stepped forward, De Jong and Lewandowski could have stepped back and probably wouldn't have led to Conde's own goal.
b. De Jong's passing problem: selection bias under pressure
Looking at De Jong's passing stats, there have been 22 key passes so far this season, resulting in 1.7 expected assists, and the actual assist is 1 (expected assists and key passes conversion rate is less than 0.78).
Assists are affected by the ability of the shooter and will be biased, and the quality of a player's threat can be seen from the conversion rate between key passes and expected assists (Pedri is the highest in Barca in midfield, and Alba is relatively the best in the squad with more than 10 key passes).
This time when De Jong has the ball, he should actually try to take a step back, so whether it is passing Roberto back or moving Alba at the far end, he can be more relaxed.
De Jong's problem is that his passing action takes a long time to charge the ball, either by preparing early and passing the ball directly, or by needing more continuous adjustment movements under his feet after taking the ball.
Many of his mistakes actually come from this. This time he wanted to pass directly, but it was cut off, giving Manchester United a chance to counterattack. Christensen's choice was not as good as Alonso's previous pursuit, but he completely lost his position, but fortunately Rashford flew away.
De Jong's problem was also exposed at the World Cup. This time, he only needs to take a step horizontally, and immediately open the sky. Choosing to pass to Timber in the crowd actually pitted his teammates and caused Ecuador to directly counterattack and score after breaking the ball.
De Jong starts to carry the ball at speed, often when the opponent is not moving, he starts first. Once the opponent takes the initiative to grab De Jong, he will hastily choose to pass the ball because he is not confident in his ability to protect the ball, resulting in mistakes.
Ten Hag clearly seized on this flaw and went straight to De Jong as much as possible, with excellent results.
03. Will De Jong get a discount because of this pizza?
a. De Jong as a back: Defensively much harder than last season
De Jong's defensive stats this season are much better than last season. This is because Xavi relatively put De Jong in the back position and did not arrange him to insert too much forward.
De Jong has a teammate at the back behind him, and Garvey in front has a good degree of defensive freedom and has achieved a certain sweeping effect. At the same time, when he plays double back, his attitude of falling into defense is still very good, but some key ball deviations.
In this retreat, Barca are both in a positive position. Casey walked towards the ribs, to jam the possible interior space of Wan-Bissaka, and De Jong was to fall to protect the inverted triangle of the contact point.
Although Casey ran a little faster than De Jong, both of them worked equally hard to get into position. When Sancho shoots on goal, De Jong's biggest problem is that he is a beat slower (De Jong takes longer to charge before he can make a move, and he is not very able to get out of the move).
On the other hand, Conde's selection is actually quite poor, in contrast, Araujo reaching out and hugging Rashford is a habit of his (Araujo can scare people and stick tightly, which is the only thing that can be attached to the defense line to fight, but Araujo likes to use his hands too much and is easy to be fouled).
Because of De Jong's foot accuracy problems, he needed to back in place earlier, and this time it was actually difficult for De Jong to interfere when the opponent shot on goal.
However, Sancho's shot was a bit inferior, and De Jong's foot helped Manchester United and almost turned into an own goal.
b. Will Manchester United still ask for De Jong?
Ten Hag has feelings for De Jong, but judging from the offer given to De Jong in the Manchester United summer window (whether it is a transfer fee or an annual salary), it is relatively low.
They are clearly more willing to invest more in the deal between Anthony and Casemiro, which is a big reason why De Jong's transfer deal talks failed.
If Manchester United finish in the top four and get a ticket to next season's Champions League, will they still be looking for De Jong in the summer window? Will De Jong refuse then?
Of course, everything starts with Manchester United once again to buy it. After all, in the winter window, they did not have such actions and budgets.
Conclusion:
Given Sergio Busquets' age, Barca always have to find a new successor at the back. De Jong is certainly a relatively good presence in the young midfield. However, his transfer fee and annual salary may also give Barca more options in the same position.
It's just that Barca's vision for selecting people when bringing in people is not very good, and if there is an opportunity to "change", whether they can choose the right person will be a problem.