Apparently before he signed he said "i'll sort it out" referring to our midfield problems. Guess it's too much of a task even for a 4 time champions league winner
I often wonder how different things might have been if De Jong had signed instead. You never know, they might have been worse but i'm curious how much different our style might have been.
I thought about that too... Good chance, we'd have a clearer picture of what ETH wants to create stilistically but I think, there is a good chance, we wouldn't have had such a "good" first season. The first season saw us switching to a more transitional approach quickly after the first two games. Such a move was on because we still had Bruno and Rash who flourish in those conditions and the rest of the team was mostly capable of that too. It even helped Eriksen to bed in. Casemiro coming in was also in line with that, I think, he is capable for other styles as well but a rather compact team suits him quite well. With FDJ in the team, it would have made sense to get more expansive, more technical. I think, a transitional play would have been possible with him as well - but I think, it would be a bit of a waste of his strengths (while Casemiro showed his defensive abilities and everybody was happy to finally have a capable defensive midfielder in there).
At the end of the day, midfields are always about combinations of players. Only adding one great player doesn't change much all of a sudden, if it doesn't fit. I think with FDJ instead of Casemiro, we'd lack phyiscality (I think, we do lack that right now too because Casemiro looked a bit off the pace. But this might also be emphasized by ETHs adjustments in terms of game plan). The best combinations are probably the ones where you have specialists that also chip in in all other categories. A defensive midfielder who is really good at winning the ball but is also good on the ball to keep things going. An attacking midfielder who is great at creating chances but also isn't completely out of the picture when things get tough. I think, this is what held us back all those years. We had players who had their strength but their weak areas were really weak. Like Fred, who had fantastic workrate and energy but was so unreliable on the ball. Or Pogba who was able to ping balls everywhere but had no real idea about defensive positioning.