Frenkie de Jong should persuade Man City to cash in Ferran Torres 'favour' with Barcelona

On Thursday evening, the perfect Pep Guardiola midfielder put on a masterclass to inspire his side to victory in a crucial European fixture.

Of course, he wasn't actually playing for Manchester City. Yet if history had taken a different turn, he quite easily could have been.

City and Guardiola were keen admirers of Frenkie de Jong in the teenager's breakout 2018/19 season, when he played a starring role in a remarkable young Ajax side reaching the Champions League semi-finals.

City and Pep considered buying him from the Dutch giants in 2019, but in the end the then 21-year-old opted to pen an agreement for the 2019/20 season with Barcelona - a club that, thanks to the likes of Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels, has close ties to Ajax and Dutch football as a whole.

De Jong is 24 now, but he is only just starting to look the real deal at Camp Nou. In Barca's 4-2 win against Napoli in the 2nd leg of their Europa League tie this week, the Dutch midfielder put in a masterful display.

With Barca ruthlessly exploiting the space afforded to them by their Italian opponents, De Jong scored the second goal of the night after just 13 minutes, curling a sumptuous effort into the top corner to silence the usually hostile Napoli home crowd.

After half-time he demonstrated his awareness and impeccable sense of timing, pulling off a lovely dummy to allow Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to sweep home Barca's fourth.

Owing largely to managerial instability and Barca's financially necessitated need to reshuffle their playing squad, De Jong has found consistent performances hard to come by over the past two-and-a-half seasons. However, the fact that he is now flourishing under the leadership of Xavi Hernandez - the former Barca captain and