Although it cooled down towards the end of the transfer window as it became clear that no deal was going to take place, undoubtedly the saga of the summer at Barcelona was Frenkie de Jong.
It looked as if Barcelona had decided the best course of action was to sell the Dutch midfielder amid a constant stream of links to the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea, even if publicly they maintained that they wanted de Jong to stay. Much of that was seemingly due to his high salary and the fact he was one of the few valuable assets the club was willing to sell.
Many thought that Barcelona were too aggressive in their attempts to force de Jong out, however ultimately it seems to have ended amicably, at least in public.
For the first time, the de Jong addressed the issue with the press. During his press conference for the Netherlands, Mundo Deportivo carried his response to questions about his summer.
“I always wanted to stay at Barcelona and that is why I always remained calm during the summer.”
He did hint that the Blaugrana had not always entirely been content with his position in some sense.
“I can’t give many details. But look… the club have their own ideas and I also have ideas of my own and, sometimes, these ideas clash. But in the end things went well.”
While Barcelona are winning this should not be too much of an issue. Should they stop doing so and should de Jong remain on the bench more often than in the starting line-up, then the disagreements of the summer may begin to weigh heavy.
Imagine signing a job contract as private person.
You are guaranteed to make x amount of euros over y years.
Along comes your boss one day and says: “you will need to lower your salary we agreed on and you have a contract on – or you will be ostracized from work and have worst shifts for rest of your time on work place.
Reason for that?
Well I want to buy another toy that is shinier.”
Would you as a young prospective player ever take this circus of a club seriously if they asked you to join? Assuming their agents read news and these sagas, which they do. “Join barcelona? Remember how they treated DeJong? No way man, go elsewhere. They are clearly mentaIIy ill, flipflopping like that.”
Have they ever asked themselves why Mbappe never wanted to even talk to them, Rudiger as well not to forget they have been after Tchouameni as well.