On Saturday we covered some claims from Catalan newspaper Sport around the future of Donny van de Beek.
It was stated both Manchester United and Tottenham have initiated contact over signing the Ajax player, but that he was waiting to see if Barcelona make a move.
Such an effort wasn’t expected from Barca, unless they sell a raft of players quickly. The predicted €55m asking price was just considered too much.
Later that day, Van de Beek was left out of an Ajax friendly, with manager Erik ten Hag suggesting there’d been developments around a potential transfer.
That inevitably saw a rush of claims on social media, with Spanish journalist Oriol Domenech saying: ‘One of the priorities of Ronald Koeman, Donny van de Beek, is about to sign for Manchester United.’
Sunday’s edition of Mundo Deportivo says ‘everything indicates’ the midfielder has an agreement to sign for Manchester United, and any Barcelona links are dismissed as ‘rumours’.
Mundo sound so confident that they add an ‘announcement is expected in the next few hours’. That clearly sounds exciting for United fans, but it’s possible this is being pushed further than is the reality.
Several months ago, the Dutch media claimed Van de Beek was set to sign for Real Madrid as soon as the window opened, however, media close to the Spanish club dismissed that, saying the player was just an option.
Ajax don’t seem against a transfer, instead wanting to talk it up, and perhaps that was the whole point of the Real Madrid claims. Similar has happened with goalkeeper Andre Onana.
Should Manchester United seriously want Van de Beek then it should be an easy deal to do. Ajax are clearly ready to sell, and the player trained alone on Sunday.
