Might need the fans to make noise about this so the club pulls the fecking finger out before Bayern/Barca sign him.
Matthijs De Ligt | Ajax CB
- Thread starter FC Ronaldo
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Absolute Football Manager Legend who doesn’t look too shabby in real life 
strikes me as the type of player who has plenty of room for improvement whilst already being top tier.
Any club would be lucky to sing him, but you get the feeling it will take an offer over £70m for that to happen. Times have changed, Ajax don’t need the money anymore.
strikes me as the type of player who has plenty of room for improvement whilst already being top tier.Any club would be lucky to sing him, but you get the feeling it will take an offer over £70m for that to happen. Times have changed, Ajax don’t need the money anymore.
Out - Pogba £120m
In - De Ligt £60m, De Jong £60m
Bit of silliness but I'd take that all day long. Just have a great feeling about De Ligt based on what I've seen so far and it's not often that a player comes so highly rated on here by people who watch him a lot.
In - De Ligt £60m, De Jong £60m
Bit of silliness but I'd take that all day long. Just have a great feeling about De Ligt based on what I've seen so far and it's not often that a player comes so highly rated on here by people who watch him a lot.
De Jong and De Light will probably end up playing for Barcelona..a shame 
why do people keep saying Barcelona? they have umtiti and lenglet no?
Incredible talent. Since his performance in the 2017 EL final I’ve looked out for him and he’s got better and better.
He would be an incredible player for us, but I cant think any reason why he would join us. Clearly all top clubs are interested in him so unless he is a United fan he will surely join Barca, Madrid, City, Bayern or Juve.
You can imagine we have learnt from previous mistakes of letting Ajax's promising players move to our rivals and than try and buy them. Buy the kid and our defense has the best young CB in the world.
Not having a direct dig at you per se.
But this ridiculousness is why we are in this mess at the moment. 60M for De Ligt? What kind of nonsense is this? Really just have a think about it. It was obvious two years ago that after the final that we shouldn't have left the stadium without signing him up. Now people expect Woodward to just come out and make a signing like this? It is too late. It should have been done two years ago when he would have cost 1/4 of that and would have been hailed as an absolute gem of a signing.
Buying these kinds of players and throwing mountains of cash at them before they've done anything is why we're in this mess in the first place. Look at the Martial signing as a test case, front loading all of this money into his contract that now we've backed our way into a corner after two years of not even looking like he cares and we have to just bin him because we can't drop his salary by 30k which would reflect the level of development that he's at.
(Again, sorry about the rant. Not trying to directly throw that dig at you, more highlight the farcical nature of the scenario and that a CEO with the strategies that we've seen from Woodward wouldn't ever go near a signing like this for the right reasons.)
There's absolutely no way we would've sold him for anything like 15 or 20m back then, that's just unfair on Woodward.
If we were to pay 80 mio for a player i rather we invest in goals and assists.
He was 17 at the time, there is no way Woodward would have gone anywhere near the signing was my point. That was the time to get him, there is no point waiting a few years and throwing money at these players like this. This strategy is why we are where we are now.
Sadly this at the moment.
The point i was trying to make is that he wouldn't have been considerably less expensive back then. Maybe you could've gotten him for 40m but even that's iffy considering what we got for Sanchez.
I don't know, your general point regarding Woodward might well be true. Can't really comment on that. I just don't think it really applies here.
60M for De Ligt would be a catch in todays market. He will go for more and rightly so. I made this point in the Koulibaly thread; this might be a cashflow issue but its so not a cost issue. Even if he flops (which he wont) his value in todays crazy market will not be much less. If he performs his value will increase. Look at Pogba who hasnt really performed for us and he will go for maybe 150M if we sell him nxt summer.
And as to the bolded part: we are not throwing mountains of cash at a young player. We are paying his club for an asset which is easily worth 60M. Why do people try to make it out that this type of investment in a world class talent is a cost/loss. Its not; its an investment.
I would take anyone of De Ligt and Koulibaly for that transfer fee no questions asked.
Liverpool waited for Van Dijk to prove himself at PL level, and already forgot what they paid for him. De Ligt is already better, has more years in him, and has not reached his ceiling yet.
Ok he's already better than Van Dijk now? Calm down mate.
I haven't taken offence. I completely agree with you. We're really not shrewd in the transfer market at all.
If we do sign a 19 year old for £60m, they have to be a can't fail, elite level talent. I suspect De Ligt is that; he's already proven himself in European competitions and has already played around 60 games for Ajax and 7 for Netherlands. I was about to make the point that Martial was less proven but, looking at Wikipedia, he'd actually made near enough the same amount of appearances for Monaco. Having said that, the market has gone even more mad since Martial signed.
I think a big issue is that our squad is so lacking in proven world class, experienced talent that we're less willing to buy young potential gems. When we had a top squad under Sir Alex, we were investing in youth and under the radar players because we had a strong core that we had the luxury of supplementing with 'gambles'. Now we're sloppily trying to buy top class players but seem to get them after they've peaked (Di Maria, Sanchez, Falcao, Schweinsteiger, arguably Matic).
Dalot was a refreshing signing in this regard though.
But he is. Have you seen them play together in the Dutch team?
wow, just wow
no one is doubting boy's potential but he's nowhre near VVD's level now, established world class CB for one of the best teams in the world who tend to play attacking football and overlook defense and despite that having the best defense in the league. What has de ligt achieved so far? Being good in the shite dutch league?Come on now, world class CB with a list of achievements? This isn't Stam we are talking about. VVD has won precisely nothing of note and still has a lot to prove at Liverpool, hes still making some pretty basic errors at times. De Ligt is not all that far away from him despite being half a career behind.wow, just wow
Rio Ferdinand was worth 30m 15 years ago, I'd say that the transfer prices have increased 3 fold since then. Assuming De Ligt is at the level of Ferdinand at Leeds, he's easily worth 90m in todays market.
Take for instance the Portugal game. De Ligt took care of Ronaldo, not Van Dijk. De Ligt was directing Van Dijk, not the other way round. Build-up from the back went through De Ligt, not Van Dijk. When Van Dijk intercepts, he gives it to De Ligt. Don't get me wrong, Van Dijk is excellent defender, but much more basic.
Van Dijk and De Ligt are CBs you would want paired together not CBs who would be competing for the same position.
Oh yea? Please list all these errors Van Dijk is making then. VVD is playing in the EPL and De Ligt is playing in Eredivisie that's a big gulf in quality there. He could end up being better than VVD all the signs are there but he's not better than him now imo
Just throw money at Ajax for him. Woodward made a giant spiel about how he would invest big for someone like Varane, well now you have the next Varane so go get him.
Van Dijk was a year older and fumbling around at Groningen at this stage. De Ligt is captain of Ajax, pocketing forwards like Lewandowski in the CL and already a first choice national team option.
His quality is blatant.
He looks a great talent... The only reservation I'd have is that it's abundantly clear that our central defenders need an experienced leader to guide them; and a 19 year old coming from the Dutch league isn't going to command the respect of the squad to be that leader. Our centre backs at the moment constantly look like Evans did when Vidic or Ferdinand weren't partnering him... Completely lost.
If we were looking to completely revamp our central defence then he'd probably be the best signing we could make... However our budget wouldn't allow for a Pep style £250m splurge.
If we were looking to completely revamp our central defence then he'd probably be the best signing we could make... However our budget wouldn't allow for a Pep style £250m splurge.
And Ronaldo, and Lacazette...and Giroud (he'll be less proud of that one).
Fact is that VVD is regarded a much better player in the UK than in the Netherlands. Yes, he's good. He's tall, he's strong, he's fast. I'll give the likers that.
One the other hand. People who make their point saying De Ligt playing in the Eredivisie must make him the lesser player never saw him play. I do think he's (at least) as good as VVD at this point. His ceiling is so so soooooo much higher.
60mio (the amount people are talking about here, but won't be enough to buy him) is an absolute bargain.
With how he is described he should already be the best cb in the world, think Ajax fans are over exaggerating here, especially the one who says his ceiling is soooo much higher than VVD, why because he is 19? Well then the same can be said for Gomez, Kimpembe and co if were taking into consideration how good they are already at their age, doesn't quite work like that though, you can't always assume a youngsters progress would be linear, for example someone like Varane, is probably the best young cb i've ever seen, and yes he has more to his game than De Light when you consider his lightening pace, he has only really put together a truly world class season last season at the age of 24.
Umtiti and Lenglet are left centerbacks, whereas De Ligt is predominantly a right centerback — so he'll be more of a successor to Piqué, who will turn 32 pretty soon and is edging towards the twilight of his career. Barcelona didn't have a sound succession plan for the likes of Xavi or Alves, not necessarily in terms of quality because it would be close to impossible but wrt. characteristics, and it caused some systemic issues (like the change in playing style to accommodate Rakitić by putting more of a focus on Messi-Suárez-Neymar). Piqué didn't quite reach the heights of Xavi or Alves as a player but was central to Barcelona's build-up play and organisation from the back for close to a decade, and is a very important piece in the overall setup still, so it makes sense to target an elite talent who offer a good passing skillset and understanding of the game on top of top-notch defensive wherewithal for his age. Plus, Barcelona is an obvious link for the best Ajax players given their history with Cruyff and converging ideologies (including how young players are educated, both mentally and physically), and that would presumably smoothen the transition.
Yes his quality is blatant but i don't think he's as good as VVD is now, if he continues his progress he will be better than him. And when you play for one of the top top teams the pressure is increased massively , any mistake scrutinised and talked about for longer let's see how he handles that before we say he's better than VVD.
Patrick Kluivert scored the winning goal against AC Milan in 95 . Van Nistelrooy ( born on the same day as Kluivert ) were still playing in de sec dutch league in 98 .
This topic took a dumb turn, the comparison is way off. Comparisons in football usually are. Lets just appreciate the talent and hope he won't end up at our rivals.
He made "the" mistake that cost Holland the world cup in his international debut at 17 and just came out the other end a better player.
If we got rid of Jones, Rojo and Lindelof for - 60M then signed T Auderweireld in January for 35M we could easily pay 60 to 70M for this lad, bring back Axel and TFM in the summer and a set of 6 Centre Backs with 1 who is really a right wing back would strengthen the squad immeasurably. Toby(30), Smalling (29) experienced, with Bailly (26) in the middle bracket and 3 young Centre Backs with one an absolute beast. It can be done, should be done but you know Barca are going to Nick this boy because of our dithering transfer policy!
Kluivert had the natural world class talent, but not the mentality or ability to deal with the success and spotlights. For Van Nistelrooij it was more the other way around, his drive and mentality made him. De Ligt's mentality has never been questioned, he's Ajax's captain at that young age for a reason. And he's obviously very talented aswell.
The thing about De Ligt is he is a young defender that already plays like a veteran. Talented young defenders usually either are overly reliant on pace, are overly aggressive or try to do too much on the ball. De Ligt does not have any of those issues.
Yes and we were in the market for one. If only we had someone in the club who had better control of purchasing.
Kluivert was a good player, but he wasn't world class - if anything his early career elevated his status.