Ten Hag wants to sign Eriksen AND De Jong
Mindful midfielder Roca poised to light up Leeds
MANCHESTER United could sign both Frenkie de Jong and Christian Eriksen for new manager Erik ten Hag this summer.
United’s interest in Eriksen would not rule out a move for their No 1 target De Jong as talks continue with his club Barcelona.
Eriksen’s availability as a free agent is an attractive proposition for United, who are working on a limited budget this summer after failing to qualify for the Champions League.
Although the former Tottenham and Ajax star is 30 years old and United already have Donny van de Beek and Bruno Fernandes for the No 10 position, the club need to replace three attacking midfielders following the departures of Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba who was last night close to rejoining Juventus.
Ten Hag got a first-hand view of Eriksen, who trained with Ajax reserves in January as part of his comeback after suffering a cardiac arrest with Denmark at last summer’s Euros.
Eriksen’s remarkable recovery continued after he signed a shortterm deal with Brentford for the second half of the season.
He has offers from Spurs, Everton and Brentford — who were prepared to make him their highest-paid player — but United have stepped up their interest.
‘I have different options, which we are considering, and then we make a decision,’ Eriksen said this week. ‘I would love to play Champions League football again. I know how much fun it is, but it isn’t essential for me.’
United see De Jong as a different type of midfielder and will continue negotiations with Barcelona over the £70m-rated former Ajax star regardless of any move for Eriksen.
United have yet to make a formal bid for the 25-year- old Holland international, but are prepared to walk away from the deal and pursue other options if the two sides cannot compromise on price.
A new striker is their other priority but United declined to be drawn into a bidding war with Liverpool for Darwin Nunez before the Benfica star completed a £85m move to Anfield.
United could also sign a defensive midfielder, central defender, right back and winger if the budget allows. Anthony Martial, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Eric Bailly and Phil Jones are among the players who could be sold to raise funds.
United’s No 2 goalkeeper Dean Henderson is attracting fresh interest from Bournemouth and third choice Tom Heaton is wanted by Middlesbrough but will stay at Old Trafford if Henderson leaves.
MARC ROCA may not be the quickest but for Leeds United’s £10.4million signing, the game is all in the mind.
A deep thinker, advocate of meditation and avid reader, the Spaniard, who is joining from Bayern Munich, recommends Awaken the Giant Within by American motivational guru Tony Robbins as bedtime reading.
Roca, whose fee may rise to £14.7m, models his game on former Liverpool maestro Xabi Alonso. He arrived in Bavaria from Espanyol with great expectations in 2020 amid interest from Barcelona and Arsenal, but a combination of injuries and stellar competition meant that most of his time at Bayern was spent in the shadows.
His mentality has never been in question but his speed and intensity sometimes are.
‘He can compensate for his weaknesses with good positional play,’ insists Bayern head coach Julian Nagelsmann. ‘He is very hardworking and always willing to listen.’ That said, Nagelsmann preferred to leave Roca on the bench until giving him a surprise start against Stuttgart last December. A 5-0 win ensued and a contrite Nagelsmann admitted: ‘I praised him in the dressing room. I don’t usually praise individual players in front of the others but he deserved it.
‘The way he fought and gave everything was impressive. I love the kind of player who proves the coach wrong and shows it was a mistake not to play them often.’ Roca threw himself into the German lifestyle, learning the language and putting on muchneeded muscle to the delight of the German tabloid press, who charted his progress on Instagram. He rented an apartment with girlfriend Gala on the edge of a Munich park, where he ran and exercised his beloved pet dogs.
The experience on the bench has tested the 25-year-old’s psyche but fortunately he has been prepared.
‘Yes, the concept is called mindfulness,’ Roca told Bild. ‘I’ve been working on it with a coach for four years. You don’t have much time to think on the pitch, by the time you get the ball, you have to know what to do. So it’s good to hide everything else; the thoughts of the pressure, of the expectations, of anything that weakens the focus on the game itself. So before training and playing, I do breathing exercises to clear my head.’ So what exactly is Leeds boss Jesse Marsch getting? ‘Roca plays like a quarterback,’ said former Bayern technical director Michael Reschke. ‘He has good passing, short and long, his technique is good and he has a good mentality.
‘He was certainly well respected by his team-mates,’ he added. ‘The one downside perhaps is that he could be a little stronger.’