Man United & Chelsea will continue to “monitor” summer transfer target ahead of January

Manchester United and Chelsea will continue to keep an eye on developments regarding Frenkie de Jong’s situation at Barcelona in the months ahead.

That’s according to Fabrizio Romano in his exclusive CaughtOffside column, with the transfer news guru giving plenty of insight into why the Netherlands international ended up staying at the Nou Camp this summer.

Both Man Utd and Chelsea were keen to sign De Jong and it seems both teams managed to agree a deal with Barcelona, but not with the player, who was always determined to stay with his current club.

Romano says De Jong is keen to win things with Barca, as many great Dutch players have done in the past, and he now sees that there is an opportunity to do so as the squad has improved a lot since he first arrived.

United manager Erik ten Hag will no doubt be disappointed not to be able to be reunited with his former player, with the pair working well together at Ajax a few years ago, while Chelsea could also have done with bringing in the Dutchman as a long-term replacement for Jorginho, who will be out of contract next summer.

Romano says both clubs will keep an eye on De Jong, but it will be some time before it’s clear if there will be another opportunity to sign him.

“So far the situation is totally quiet,” Romano said.

“Frenkie wanted to stay at Barca and therefore there are no immediate updates.

“Certainly Man United and Chelsea will monitor the situation but they know that De Jong only wanted Barca with great clarity all summer.

“It will take months before we understand the next developments.”

Romano also made it clear just how much De Jong was keen to stay at Barcelona this summer, saying: “He’s happy with life in Barcelona, his girlfriend is happy there. He made it clear he wanted to stay.

“United were just hoping that Frenkie would change his mind. Sometimes to sign top players you need to be patient, to wait and see if Frenkie was going to change his mind.

“But it never happened, and this is why they decided to invest big money on Casemiro.”