For Manchester United the quest to return to the top of European soccer is still ongoing. Still alive in the Europa League, the Red Devils were eliminated from the FA Cup and sit second, behind archrivals Manchester City, in the Premier League. Ole Gunnar Solskjær has slowly turned the club’s fortunes around as they have found a steady squad and star player in Bruno Fernandes. Nonetheless this is still not enough if ManU is to challenge for the Champions League and overtake City at the top of the standings next season.
The Manchester United board room have already begun to think about improving the squad for next season and they will try to make a splash this summer with a big name signing.
In order to complete this big name move, the club has turned their attention to Borussia Dortmund and have focused their efforts on signing Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, or Manuel Akanji in the summer. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, spending big may be out of the question, so the United board may shop Donny van de Beek as a wild card to add on to any potential deal.
Why shop Donny van de Beek?
According to the Mirror, Van de Beek is willing to leave Manchester United in the next transfer window due to his lack of playing time this season. The van de Beek wild card would only apply to one of these three signings, most likely the two attacking options: Haaland or Sancho.
Both Haaland and Sancho have been priorities for ManU for a while now and given the team’s almost certain second place finish and Champions League birth, the timing might be right to bring in one of these two big names.
Status of Haaland, Sancho and Akanji
Erling Haaland is one of the world’s best strikers and is having a career year scoring 33 goals in 31 games and is on the short list of being the World’s best soccer player once Messi and Ronaldo retire. Haaland would command a 100 million Euro transfer, at least, for him to leave Dortmund.
Jadon Sancho has been on Solskjær’s short list for at least 1 year now. Sancho has played over 100 games for Dortmund and is one of the faces of the English National Team. While he might not cost as much as Haaland, Sancho would still command a huge transfer which United would want to buy down using van de Beek.
Manuel Akanji is also a target to help United in an area that needs adjustment, which is defense. Using van de Beek to buy down a defender looks unlikely, so out of the three players, Akanji would most likely leave for 100% of his transfer fee.
Donny van de Beek at Manchester United
Donny van de Beek moved to ManU from Ajax this season and the Netherlands striker has only played 13 games and scored 1 goal in the Premier League. Most of his appearances have been as a substitute for Bruno Fernandes,who is the team’s first choice option up top.
van de Beek’s career began in Ajax where he played 118 games and scored 28 goals and won three titles with the Netherlands giants. van de Beek also has 17 caps and 2 goals for the Orange Machine and is only 23 years old.
