The end of an error? Man Utd review must ensure Van de Beek mistakes aren’t repeated

Manchester United had questionable motives for signing Donny van de Beek, who has wasted some of his best years at Old Trafford. Lessons must be learned…

Even in the context of Manchester United’s wretched recruitment in recent years, it is hard to think of a signing that worked out so terribly for all concerned as that of Donny van de Beek.

The former Netherlands midfielder’s Old Trafford nightmare is apparently almost over, with a deal in the pipeline to take him to Eintracht Frankfurt for the second half of the season. The Germans will pay a loan fee before deciding if they wish to cough up another £12.5million to make it a permanent arrangement in the summer.

It might take that time just for Van de Beek to get up to speed with being a footballer again. Three and a half years the midfielder has wasted at United who, in the best-case scenario, will take a hit of around £22million on their 2020 recruit.

One day, we’ll find out what happened around that deal. However it came about and whoever pushed for it, only Ajax benefitted. Not for the last time when it comes to United.

Signing Van de Beek was portrayed by United as something of a coup during the Covid-ravaged summer of 2020. There was talk of interest in the Netherlands star from Real Madrid, though the source of whispers was and remains a mystery.

Wherever that talk originated, it served its purpose. Desperate to prove they remained a force in the market, or simply just to prove they were capable of doing a deal – any deal – United took the bait and paid Ajax what they were asking – a cool £35million.

It was the first signing of a typically chaotic summer that saw United leave much of their business to the last days, which inevitably reeked of desperation. Especially after a miserable start to the season.

Not so much for Van de Beek, though. When he scored on his debut against Crystal Palace – the only positive in a 3-1 home defeat – it was hoped to be the start of a fruitful relationship. Instead, that was as good as it ever got. In three years spent at Old Trafford, he managed six Premier League starts. Six. His last came in the first game of 2023.

Those appearances, and 29 cameos from the bench, hardly offered the impression Van de Beek was being harshly judged. He was viewed as a versatile midfielder but one best suited to playing as a no.10, a position Bruno Fernandes had already made his, one Paul Pogba felt he also had a claim on.

Van de Beek wasn’t to know that Fernandes is unbreakable. The United skipper’s robustness has been staggering and such is his creative influence, all three managers during his United career came to view him as un-restable.

On the rare occasion Van de Beek featured in his preferred role, there was plenty of neat and tidiness but nothing like the creativity brought by Bruno. Two goals and two assists were the sum total of 62 appearances overall.

Only a third of those came in an attacking role, with Van de Beek most often employed deeper or even on the left. Which was probably a ploy to keep him out of the hustle and bustle of a Premier League midfield battle.

Very early on, concerns emerged over Van de Beek’s physical prowess and his suitability for the English game. Which really feels like something that ought to have been identified before Ed Woodward signed the cheque for Ajax.

It is clear that Woodward wanted Van de Beek more than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Or Ralf Rangnick. Van de Beek represented an opportunity for Woodward to present a short-term impression of competency when valid questions continued to be asked of his suitability for office at a club like Manchester United.

Van de Beek is far from the first player to be signed by the wrong person for the wrong reasons by the wrong club, and he almost certainly won’t be the last. Even when the midfielder was given the chance to prove himself Prem-ready at Everton – under Frank Lampard, who evidently doesn’t know much but, on the basis of taking one to know one, should recognise an attacking midfielder – Van de Beek struggled to assert himself in a dreadful Toffees side.

Anyone could get bogged down at Goodison Park back then but Van de Beek, as a player supposedly courted by the world’s grandest clubs, ought to have ben able to rise above the sh*te and lift those around him too. That he could not.

Since that spell at Everton, there has been painfully little suggestion that he might cut the mustard in Manchester. When Erik ten Hag arrived, his old Ajax coach, it was assumed to be Van de Beek’s big chance. Instead, knowing United had been played as a patsy, Ten Hag has given his old boy precious few opportunities while he struggles to get his own feet under the table.

It is appropriate that Van de Beek will be Frankfurt-bound just as Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s name appears above the Old Trafford door. The new investor and his people have been carrying out a review into United’s operation and the Van de Beek palaver should feature prominently in its scope as a prime example of what must change when it comes to recruitment.

Amid the rancour and recrimination, there is a footballer who has lost more than three of his best years. Sympathy might be hard to come by since he’s hardly been held captive and he has been very well remunerated for very little work. Indeed, when he had the chance to get away in the summer, Van de Beek scuppered his own prospects by turning his nose up at Lorient, while Real Sociedad were also led up the garden path.

Few around United will wish him less than the best as he heads to Germany to kickstart what was once a very promising career, if only so it means he won’t return to Manchester with all parties back at square one in the summer. United have more to answer for and much that must be learned.

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