Inside Donny van de Beek’s Man Utd misery as exit now inevitable

Donny van de Beek arrived at Manchester United as an exciting all-action midfielder that had been all the way to the Champions League semi-finals with Erik ten Hag’s Ajax. The subsequent three seasons were a major disappointment, and the Dutchman looks set to cut his losses by moving onto pastures new this summer.

With 41 goals in 175 matches from midfield, Van de Beek commanded a hefty £40million transfer fee when he signed for the Red Devils in 2020. That eye for goal which he regularly demonstrated in the Netherlands went completely awry upon landing in the Premier League, however, and he quickly found himself way down the pecking order.

Struggling to squeeze past Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba into the starting XI, Van de Beek was deemed to have been thrown one final lifeline when Ten Hag was appointed last year, meaning a reunion with his former Ajax boss.

But a series of crippling injuries saw Van de Beek almost permanently sidelined in 2022/23, managing less than 300 minutes of first-team football across all competitions.

While the 26-year-old is now believed to be exploring options away from Old Trafford, his spell in Manchester has seemingly been doomed from the start, and the first traces of concern came just weeks after his arrival.

At the time, Dutch football legend Marco van Basten claimed that his compatriot would come to ‘regret‘ his move to the Red Devils due to a lack of first-team opportunities. That notion was quickly hammered home as, according to Van de Beek’s former agent, he was left fuming at Pogba receiving preferential treatment under former boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

With only 12 first-team starts across the past three campaigns, it remains to be seen which top-level sides are enticed by the prospect of recruiting Van de Beek, who is currently nowhere near the player who hit double figures in three seasons on the trot for Ajax.

The midfielder’s torrid Man Utd spell, which will go down as one of the worst transfers in Premier League history, has also seen him drop out of the international picture since 2021. Although there are two years remaining on Van de Beek’s Red Devils contract, it seems inevitable that an exit will be sought this summer as he looks to get his career back on track.