“I’m still here you Catalan feckers…”
Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
- Thread starter davidmichael
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My sense of the player as well. If ETH believes we should hang in there for Frenkie, we must do so.
Weird, his way of saying he's a barca player?
The white shirt probably symbolises the white flag: Barcelona are about to surrender and pay him the 17m.
Or glass-half full view of him in a Barca shirt for the last time?
Look at the comments! Deluded feckers telling him to leave - the fans are turning already!
I think we're talking the same thing really. He will earn £X million in total over the remainder of his contract, whether it's more in year 3, 4 or 5 is kind of irrelevant.
He wouldn't want to be on less over the next few years by moving to us, especially when in his eyes (if not legally) he's already earnt most of it.
Joan Laporta means Fat John in Spanish. My mate told me and he's been to Spain.
Fickle fans... then again, he's an outsider so to speak isn't he
No, just some generic match action shots posted by his management.
Yep
Well yes, but in his eyes, he may feel that he is owed what the original contract said so 10+1 + 10+2 = 23. But with the new contract he only received 6+1 + 6+2 = 15, so it isn't entirely irrelevant when some payment is due. But not sure, if I understood your point correctly.
edit: we don't know, how all this restructuring has been done. A new contract? An amendment to the old one? Many possibilities and it would totally understandable that the player wouldn't want his old club to "save" money only because the player gave them a favour. This situation would be way more tricky from a legal side of things and to me, that seems more plausible than other variants which would be extremely easy settled as the law is pretty obvious.
I like the way you think
They had Mascherano, one of the best DM in the world at that time, to play CB. If that's the position his manager has for him, a position that he had play before, it's not that outrageous. Fred has moved around from 8 to 6 to whatever now. Whether he can hold any position in starting XI, it depends his performance.No white text?
It's the same when van de beek with us. His best position is 10, but we shoved him around because Bruno is better than him. He need to perform better than players in those positions he's capable of.
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I think he’s just toeing a line… hi everyone, I’m happy to stay if that’s what happens. Play me anywhere, I’m fine.
Meanwhile, United toe their line… we’ve had an offer accepted, we wait.
And Barca toe their line.. we’re a scummy club whose promises are worth jack shit and we’ll dump you at a moments notice.
this has nothing whatsoever to do with where the manager wants him to play - it’s about Barca wanting him out
surely you can see this?
They could, but why would they. You'd be paying €17m over Barca's asking price, to save Barca from having to pay the money themselves.
You can see why any buying club would be reluctant to do that, both financially, but also as a point of principle.
True that Barca wants him out, but , in isolation, I don't see anything wrong with how Xavi treats him.
If FDJ stays and Barca stops trying him as a CB, can he actually hope for a starting spot in midfield on merit? There are Busquets and Pedri there
You move on to the backup plan like a well ran club does.
But that’s clearly too much to ask from our club.
I mean yeah it could just be a coincidence that they are in the middle of a contract dispute and the managers decided one of the best midfielders in the world can be shunted in at centre back
Kind of sad what this thread has turned into
I think the hidden message is De Jong ready to wave the white flag as long as Barca can pay him 8 million instead of the owed 17.
Why would any club pay the money Frenkie supposed to get from Barca and bail out both the parties at own cost? 17m is not a small amount. If his legal team fecked up or whatever happened between him and the club, they both need to sort out between themselves.
I think united went as far as they could.
bloody hell. This is like calling Seamus Coleman a London based sweetcorn importer/exporter.
wowWhich is who? Who is there who is a natural in that position, is available this summer, and is of sufficient quality to make them anything other than yet another expensive sticking plaster?
I don’t think De Jong is worth the hassle either which is why the whole transfer is infuriating.
It’s De Jong, not bloody Messi/Ronaldo at their fecking prime.
We don’t need much to get an improvement over McFred. Anything would be better than going into the season with them starting in midfield ever again.
Yeah this is the problem.
Been there, done that - let’s try something new!
He's not (most likely) a paid United scout. But i'm sure you realized that already.
Essentially that. He signed a 5 year deal so would have only had 2 years remaining at this point but when he negotiated the deferred contract it included tacking on 2 more years at the original base salary so that the deferred money could be spread over 4 years and not 2. This helped Barca spread the hit out and was attractive to Frenkie as his base salary was amongst the highest in Spain so 2 more years was desirable. The trouble is that the deferred amount is 17M and the base without that is still in the region of 18.5M net per year at a time when Barca want to cap salaries for even their biggest stars at 10M net per season.
Barca would happily keep Frenkie if he would take a cut to fit their new wage structure but at that point he would be giving up in the region of 50M including the already deferred amount which he is not going to do and would be crazy to accept. His just waiving the 17M does not help them as he would still be massively over the limit they want to set which plays havoc with their budget for this year and beyond not to mention the ill feeling that would be generated within the squad by having one player earning so much more than everyone else.
Morally Barca owe him the money he deferred but it seems legally they do not. Poor work from his agent but FDJ signed the extension in good faith expecting to stay and is now being squeezed to get out of the club. Laporta claims that he is legally not owed the money which may well be true and further justifies his stance by pointing out Bartomeu was the President who signed off on this and it was tantamount to a poison pill for the incoming administration. Kicking salary they could not pay down the road to make it the problem of the new board.
Despite insisting they do not owe the money it was reported widely early on that they were willing to pay a 3.5M settlement to grease the wheels, this seems to relate mostly to that portion of the deferred wages that qualified as a bonus and the sticking point is the remaining base salary that Frenkie gave up. Our decision to increase the guaranteed money in our offer by 10M was interpreted as a way to assist Barca in negotiating a settlement however there seems little evidence that Barca have done anything of the sort and they seem to be steadfast in their position that they owe nothing.
Something has to give. The money from the two tv rights sales has funded their transfer activity so far and the restructuring of some of their debt but leaves them short of being able to register their current signings and if Frenkie stays the only option to register everyone would be the so called third lever which is to sell 50% of the revenue from Barcelona Studios which they are very reluctant to do. It also only kicks the can down the road for 12 months as under the FFP rules the amount of revenue that can be spent on salaries is reducing over the next couple of years whereas Frenkie's salary number for the 2023/2024 season goes up so that creates an even bigger headache as the deferred money is not spread evenly over the 4 years and his total compensation for that season is supposedly 28M net. They need this wage gone, they also need the transfer fee to fund their pursuit of Silva who Xavi sees as a vital part of his rebuild. They do not want to pay Frenkie the 17M to make this happen, when your financial foundations are built on sand any expenditure should be avoided if at all possible but his agent know this all too well and having had his pants pulled down in the original renegotiation by not including a clause that guaranteed his deferred wages he is playing hardball as much for his own reputation as to get Frenkie his money. Knowing Barca really need this transfer to happen is all the leverage they need, Frenkie is being told to play the good soldier and not complain and I imagine every negotiation that begins without an offer of a 17M settlement is being answered with a one word 'No".
"Sign anyone, it'll be an improvement," has been the mindset that's seen us end up with six centre backs, half of whom we don't trust and can't sell. Let's not inflict that on CM too.
He's not, no. But he has said there are alternatives; I just want to know who they are.
If the club can’t find an alternative to De Jong, they should be finding replacement jobs for themselves because they’re incompetent.
No proper club goes all in on just one player who makes/breaks their entire plan for midfield.
I do find it strange that we haven’t come out/briefed the media with some sort of update or something trying to put pressure on barca to pay the man or else we walk away soon. Its gone so quite.
Why would we? We have no need too.
It's between Barca and FdJ, theres no need for us to get involved any further. We've agreed a fee now they have to sort stuff out themselves
That is a bloody brilliant post.
Thread title should be
“De Jong and the restless”
“De Jong and the restless”
Pretty sure ETH and the team must have done their homework on all the pros and cons of this situation.
Patience. There is still good chance of this transfer happening.
But if you think Frenkie is not good enough in the first place then its a different conversation. I think he is one of the best in his position (not the one barca is playing him).
I like it
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