Donny van de Beek last week showed his frustration at Manchester United with a little strop on the bench after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer decided not to bring him on against Villarreal.
The manager was justified in his decision to choose other options, as the replacements combined to help his side win the Champions League match.
Van de Beek simply hasn’t been able to breakthrough at Old Trafford, and when the transfer window was creaking to close, the player’s agent revealed he’d offered the player to Everton.
It wasn’t the first time Everton had been linked with the player, and now Marcel Brands has spoken about what happened in the Toffees pursuit.
NOS quote the Everton transfer chief as saying: “We had him on our list. At the beginning of the transfer window, we enquired at United, then it was impossible. At the end of the window, I received a call from Guido Albers, his agent, that he might be rented out after all. But at the last minute it was cancelled. Stopped again.”
Given the player’s lack of minutes and his clear frustration with life at Manchester United, a January exit has been talked up. Asked about that, Brands said: “You always depend on whether a club wants to cooperate. And it is early October, so much can still happen with injuries. United are playing on various fronts, it’s hard to say now.
“It is of course a pity for Donny. He is a very good player, no doubt about it. Such a boy wants to play and wants to return to the Dutch national team. But you know that at such a club the pressure is great and the competition is huge. When you see what United had sitting on the bench: Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho, Paul Pogba…”
Everton’s issue may well be related to them looking for a loan, with Manchester United probably wanting to bring someone else in should Van de Beek leave.
