The inside story of how Manchester United signed Donny van de Beek

(Other contributors: Laurie Whitwell and David Ornstein)

For Donny van de Beek, the seeds of his career-defining transfer to Manchester United were planted during two crucial conversations 15 months apart. In spring 2019, as Ajax stunned Europe by reaching the Champions League semi-finals, the continent began to cast its eye towards the blond playmaker whose impact only appeared to grow with each passing game.

The truth is that there had been only minimal interest in Van de Beek before that remarkable European adventure. To recap, Ajax defeated Real Madrid in the Champions League last 16 and then Juventus in the quarter-finals. Van de Beek ran the midfield as Ajax defeated holders Madrid by a 4-1 scoreline in the Bernabeu and then he scored in a 2-1 away victory in Turin. In the Champions League semi-final first leg against Tottenham Hotspur, Van de Beek scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory.

As Ajax’s vibrant young side charmed Europe, much of the speculation surrounded Van de Beek’s promising international team-mates Matthijs de Ligt and Frenkie de Jong. In the summer of 2019, De Ligt departed for Juventus in a £63 million deal and De Jong headed to Barcelona for a £65 million fee.

Yet as Van de Beek teased and tormented Tottenham in their new stadium, an off-the-field contest began for his services. During three days around that semi-final fixture in London, his representatives met separately with Arsenal’s then-head of football Raul Sanllehi, West Ham’s then-director of football Mario Husillos, Tottenham’s chief scout Steve Hitchen and then came a fourth meeting in Manchester United’s London offices with Matt Judge. This was not an effort to tout Van de Beek around but the agency was keen to develop relationships with the people who mattered at some of England’s leading clubs. Van de Beek was not the only item on the menu.

Van de Beek as a boy

According to his LinkedIn page, Judge is United’s head of corporate development but in recent years, he has become the club’s de facto lead negotiator on transfer dealings. He is the port of call on transfers for agents and he is the man representatives need to get to know to ensure deals are smoothly done at Old Trafford. At that stage, United’s interest in Van de Beek was modest but a strong relationship developed between Judge and Van de Beek’s representatives. United’s scout in Holland, Roy Beukenkamp, also aided the development of the bond between the player’s camp and the club.

In recent weeks, this has been particularly crucial. United’s interest in Van de Beek intensified in August. The player returned from his summer holidays in Greece and was informed that the Premier League side were not only tracking him but had now made a proposal. This deal was all but completed on Monday evening after he signed a five-year deal, worth more than £100,000-per-week, that also gives United the option to extend the contract into a sixth year. The deal could ultimately be worth £40 million to Ajax, including bonuses and add-ons.

Van de Beek was encouraged by the approach at the start of the month but before committing to the transfer, he insisted upon holding talks with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The content of that conversation will remain between the two men but those familiar with the deal say Van de Beek came off the phone immediately convinced by the Norwegian’s pitch.

Van de Beek was excited to hear how Solskjaer would fit him into United’s midfield alongside Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes. Solskjaer’s response was said to be authoritative, reiterating that talented players will always work together, United’s squad requires strength in depth and he highlighted Van de Beek’s capacity to score goals from midfield.

Man Utd have agreed a £40m fee with Ajax for midfielder Donny Van de Beek 🤝

Solskjaer’s first new signing of the window 🇳🇱➡️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Check out some of his recent Champions League highlights… pic.twitter.com/f6QMqC1Yd0

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) August 31, 2020

For United, the deal is internally viewed as a serious coup. Van de Beek is a 23-year-old midfielder with his best years ahead of him but, crucially, he already has a body of experience in the Champions League. He also won a Dutch title at Ajax and has 10 international appearances to his name. Solskjaer’s major frustration towards the end of the last campaign centred on what he considered to be a lack of quality on the United substitutes’ bench, leaving him to depend excessively on a front five of Fernandes, Pogba, Mason Greenwood, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford.

Van de Beek is comfortable playing either as a deeper No 6 in midfield or as a more creative presence in a No 8 or No 10 position. Solskjaer wants more goals from midfield and sees shades of Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes in Van de Beek’s capacity to ghost in behind his markers and score inside the penalty area. Excluding penalty kicks, United’s central midfield players have scored 48 goals over the past three seasons in all competitions. Van de Beek, for his part, has 40 goals alone over the past three campaigns (from 133 games) and none of those was from the penalty spot. This gives him a better non-penalty goals-per-game ratio than Pogba (a goal every 3.3 games vs 7.0) and a near identical-record to Fernandes, who has 40 in 137 games in the same period.

As United seek to strengthen their credentials in the top four and challenge in the Champions League, Solskjaer will be looking to Van de Beek to add this extra string to United’s forward bow. On Monday, the noises around Old Trafford indicated United do not intend to stop there. Negotiations are exhausting as they pursue Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund but hope remains. United are determined to find value but there are signs of growing respect for executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and negotiator Judge.

One agent says: “Matt is being very clear and very honest in this window. He is communicating clearly and professionally. He is not easy to negotiate with but he is fair. He tells agents United run a company, as well as a football club, and it has to be taken care of in a good way.”

Solskjaer knows, too, that he woke up in a privileged position on Tuesday morning. Over the past 18 months, a host of European sides have pursued Van de Beek. The first to the table after the Champions League run in 2019 were Borussia Dortmund. The German club met with Ajax and the player’s representatives but were unable to match the asking price at that stage. Ajax’s sporting director Marc Overmars held a strong deck of cards. His roster of talent not only included De Jong and De Ligt but he also saw value in Hakim Ziyech, Andre Onana, Nicolas Tagliafico, David Neres and Dusan Tadic. Ajax were resigned to losing De Jong and De Ligt, and the £130 million of income for those two players made it easier to drive a hard bargain for Van de Beek.

Yet the interest continued. Real Madrid were next to the table and in time to come, this one may go down along with the David de Gea fax machine in the annals of near misses for the Spanish champions. Remarkably, Madrid secured a deal last August, including pretty straightforward add-ons, which would reach £50 million. At that price, Ajax were prepared to sell. Yet Madrid delayed. They needed to raise funds by offloading members of their first-team squad to make space for Van de Beek and hoped to do so during the final week of last summer’s transfer window. As it transpired, Madrid could not shift the necessary bodies.

As such, the transfer agreement changed. At the end of summer, Van de Beek accepted he would remain in Holland. Behind the scenes, Madrid stayed close to the deal and in January, it was then agreed Van de Beek would instead join Madrid at the end of the 2019-20 season. The terms of the transfer deal changed slightly, providing a gentler bonus structure for the buying club, but it still had the potential to reach £50 million. As such, United’s deal can very much be seen as the product of creditable negotiating by Judge but we should not ignore the very significant impact of the global pandemic on the transfer market.

For Madrid, the transfer was all but done. Van de Beek had held talks in Amsterdam with Madrid and his representatives visited the Spanish capital. Paperwork was signed. Only a medical was required this summer. His representatives maintained contact with interested parties such as United, just in case the deal fell through again.

And then, as the pandemic came around in spring, Madrid pulled out. As The Athletic revealed in July, Madrid do not intend to do any major business this summer and have recalled Martin Odegaard from a loan spell at Real Sociedad. The original agreement for Van de Beek, also a six-year contract, gave Madrid leeway to pull out if they were unable to make space in their squad, and so it played out.

For Van de Beek, there was obvious disappointment when Madrid communicated their decision in May. “He thought it was 100 per cent certain and then he had nothing,” admits one source close to the midfielder. Slowly but surely, however, the speculation picked up again. Ajax would need to accept reduced terms from another club. Tottenham, Juventus, Atletico Madrid and Arsenal were all kept informed of developments. Arsenal’s position in the market is by now well-known. The impact of missing out on the Champions League and the pandemic has led to 55 major redundancies at the club and a significant restructuring is underway. Despite positive discussions with Sanllehi and technical director Edu, Arsenal would need to sell to buy in this position.

Reports over the weekend indicated serious interest from Tottenham and Barcelona in Van de Beek. Members of Barcelona manager Ronald Koeman’s backroom staff are believed to have a strong relationship with the player. It is true the two clubs were kept abreast but it is also the case that after speaking to Solskjaer, Van de Beek’s representatives made clear that the player’s future would lie at Old Trafford.

For Van de Beek, there were other sources of advice. Edwin van der Sar, the CEO at Ajax, is a former United goalkeeper and he gave a glowing reference to the player and his former employers in Manchester. Dennis Bergkamp, the father of Van de Beek’s girlfriend Estelle, acclaimed the merits of a Premier League move for the midfielder. While he looked to senior figures, as well as his father, plus his agent, for advice, a convincing case also came from his Ajax team-mate and former United defender Daley Blind.

Yet the biggest talk of all came from Solskjaer. Throughout the whole process, including Real Madrid, Solskjaer is the only manager outside of Ajax who has spoken to Van de Beek about a transfer. As one source close to Van de Beek concludes: “Every coach can say they want you, but it takes a very special coach to explain exactly why they want you. Ole convinced Donny entirely.”

(Photos: Erwin Spek/Soccrates/Getty Images and Kees van den Heuvel)