Manchester United loanee Donny van de Beek was subbed on and then subbed off again last time out with Eintracht Frankfurt’s head coach insisting that the Dutchman cannot play a full 90 minutes.
After a slow start to life in Germany – completing only five passes before being hauled off at the break against Mainz and then left out of Frankfurt’s Europa League squad – this was the last thing Donny Van de Beek needed.
The £34 million Manchester United misfit replaced the injured Hugo Larsson early on during last weekend’s 1-1 home draw with Bochum. Van de Beek was then brought off again around ten minutes before full-time, the Dutchman suffering the ignonminy of being the ‘substitute substituted’.
Donny van de Beek struggling in the Bundesliga
Frankfurt boss Dino Toppmoller, however, insists that this was less to do with the quality Van de Beek’s performance – although it’s fair to say he hardly set the world alight – and more down to his lack of match fitness, the former Ajax man arriving in the Bundesliga after playing only 21 minutes in the first half of the campaign at Man United.
“Unfortunately, I had to replace Donny again,” Toppmoller, a former assistant coach at RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich, tells Liga Insider.
“Because we knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up the power for 70 minutes.”
United inserted a £13 million option-to-buy clause in his contract when they sent Van de Beek to the Commerzbank Arena at the start of January.
Already, however, there are serious doubts about whether Frankfurt will take up the chance to sign him permanently, with one German football expert seeing little to suggest that Van de Beek can rediscover the form that once made him a key part of an Ajax time who came within a Lucas Moura hat-trick of the Champions League final.
Manchester United’s £13 million sale in the balance
“Donny Van de Beek (against Mainz) was even worse than I ever even saw him in Manchester, to be honest. And that’s saying something isn’t it,” Matt Ford tells the Gegenpressing podcast.
“One particular moment sticks in my mind. He receives the ball in the centre circle in loads of space. But rather than turning and moving forward, he simply takes a touch plays the ball slowly back into defence. And the entire crowd moans. He gets dragged off at half time.
“(I was) speaking to someone close to Frankfurt,” Ford adds. “(The source) is already saying that Van de Beek had an awful lot of work to do to even consider staying at Frankfurt beyond the season.”
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