Up until this week, the general stance in the Netherlands over Donny van de Beek had been relatively calm.
There was no big distress over him not being one of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s most important players at Manchester United, and it was noted that he has been getting minutes and faces tough competition ahead of him in the Red Devils squad.
Something changed this week, and Monday’s edition of De Telegraaf stated that if the midfielder doesn’t get minutes against Manchester City then he may as well pack his bags and look for a new home.
Now it’s AD‘s turn to get in on the act, and they’ve spoken to Ronald de Boer about the Manchester United player.
He’s clearly concerned about Van de Beek’s situation, and said: “The European Championship is coming, he will undoubtedly want to be there. Maybe it would be good for him to discuss with the club exactly what they want with him. If the view on playing time does not improve, he may have to declare that he should be rented or even sold.
“You have to be lucky every now and then. Of course it doesn’t look great now, but with a great performance it can suddenly change completely. We also don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Perhaps they have made certain agreements with his transfer, they will get him ready for next year this season. That always remains a bit of a guess.”
De Boer also went on to suggest that English football may not be the best fit for the former Ajax player: “I think his playing style is better suited to the Spanish league than to the English. In the Premier League it is often run and fly, in Spain more combination football is played. Donny is physically fine. But he comes into his own better in the Ajax game.”
AD point out that Bruno Fernandes has played ‘more than five times as much’ as Van de Beek, and it’s not clear if they’re suggesting the Portuguese star should be given less minutes and the Dutchman more.
So far this season, Donny van de Beek has had 760 minutes of action, from which he’s managed one goal and one assist, which both came in September.
Interesting, the De Telegraaf article from Monday also explained that several other Ajax players have failed to live up to the heights expected of them once leaving the Amsterdam club. Hakim Ziyech was one, the Chelsea player cost a similar amount to the Manchester United man and has played less minutes so far… partly down to injury.
Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie de Jong were also mentioned, with the latter failing to fully impose his game at Barcelona and the former now the best placed of the Ajax-leavers after a difficult first campaign at Juventus.
