Manchester United can consider £25m Frenkie de Jong alternative in transfer scenario

Manchester United's top target throughout the summer window has been Frenkie de Jong and the club have been working on a deal to bring him to Old Trafford. The Manchester Evening News understands that a fee has been agreed with Barcelona for the Dutch midfielder, however, a deal is being held by a dispute over deferred wages.

This delay has left many United fans unsettled and concerned that Erik ten Hag will not be able to get his preferred midfield target. This has been further exacerbated by Barcelona naming De Jong as part of the squad for their pre-season tour of the United States.

Though it would be unwise for United to walk away from a deal for De Jong, given he is Ten Hag's number one choice, they must start putting in place a plan B. Obviously this would allow them to plan for the worst case scenario, if De Jong stays put this summer, but also to put pressure on Barcelona to resolve the dispute as they look to continue their own summer business.

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The issue is that De Jong is a rather unique profile of player, he does a lot of the jobs of a defensive midfielder in possession without possessing a lot of the attributes which make them great off the ball. What he does offer is a consistent means of progressing the ball up the pitch by picking the ball up from the defence and shuttling it up the field.

He is also incredibly adept at beating the opposition press and basically would act as the engine for Ten Hag's possession-based system at United. This rules out players like Youri Tielemans and Ruben Neves whose strengths and ability to effect the game lie much further forward.

In fact, there arguably isn't a player in the Premier League who