It’s hard to believe Matthijs de Ligt is still only 24 years old, given the maturity he showed as Ajax captain as a teenager and subsequent big-money moves to Juventus and Bayern Munich.
De Ligt didn’t set the world alight in Serie A or the Bundesliga, thanks to a combination of injuries and the two clubs’ issues on and off the pitch. However, a new lease of life potentially awaits the Netherlands international centre-back this summer, with The Athletic reporting last month that he is among the defensive signings Manchester United are exploring, with their manager, and De Ligt’s former Ajax coach, Erik ten Hag keen on a reunion, too.
It is not yet clear if United will complete a deal for De Ligt, but if they do then he should be a good addition to their current defensive options following the exit of Raphael Varane as a free agent at the end of last season. He is a right-footed right centre-back who should fit in perfectly alongside the left-footed, left-sided Lisandro Martinez.
De Ligt has had his injury issues in recent years, as the chart below shows. However, following a torrid 2020-21 in Italy, he has missed only 27 matches for club and country because of them over the past three seasons, the same as Harry Maguire and fewer than the latter’s fellow United centre-backs Victor Lindelof (31) and Martinez (67).
There are also no doubts about what De Ligt would bring as a leader, which United could do with following World Cup and four-time Champions League winner Varane’s departure.
However, questions arise when taking Ten Hag’s comments regarding his playing style into consideration. Last October, he told broadcaster Viaplay after a 3-0 Premier League home derby defeat against Manchester City: “The football that we played at Ajax, we will never play here… The Ajax style of football is very characteristic, and here we will be playing a lot more direct. And that is what we have players for, especially in the forefront (of the pitch).”
By bringing De Ligt in, perhaps Ten Hag would be signalling that he is ready to change and return to a more possession-based, fluid style of play, rather than the at times chaotic, end-to-end football United played last season. De Ligt is an astute passer and recorded 93.9 per cent completion on 77.50 attempts per 90 minutes last season, including an excellent 76.9 per cent on 7.86 long balls per 90.
He can play crossfield passes to spread the opposition out, as he did against Bochum in February.
Last season, even in one of his worst seasons, due to those injuries and a lack of consistent playing time, De Ligt’s passing still stood out.
Of his 1,193 Bundesliga passes, 8.2 per cent were progressive (defined as completed ones that move the ball towards the opposition goal line at least 10 yards from its further point in the last six passes) and 9.1 per cent were into the final third. In comparison, only 5.4 and 6.0 per cent of Martinez’s 1,528 passes in the 2022-23 Premier League were progressive and into the final third respectively. Similarly, last season, 6.6 per cent of Maguire’s 1,103 passes in the English top flight were progressive, and 7.1 per cent were into the final third.
Even when adjusting for the differences between the Bundesliga and the Premier League, this suggests De Ligt would improve United’s build-up play from the back with line-breaking passes, like in the sequence below against Darmstadt last October.
De Ligt expertly slides a pass through multiple defenders out to Bayern’s right wing, but the final cross is cleared out.
The Dutchman also poses a goal threat, having scored eight times in the domestic league across the past three seasons — more than Martinez, Maguire and Lindelof combined (six).
To understand the flipside of this argument, it’s worth revisiting another Ten Hag quote. Two months before those comments on replicating the Ajax style at United, Ten Hag said before his side’s 2-0 pre-season friendly win against Arsenal on tour in the United States, “We want to be the best transition team in the world.”
Excelling in transitions involves giving up some control of the game for surprise and speed, which in turn means simple mistakes on the ball or in players’ positioning can leave teams exposed — which turned out to be a recurring feature of United’s football last season.
De Ligt formed a partnership with an English centre-back last season in Eric Dier. Could he now start another with Harry Maguire? (Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)
In this regard, United’s pursuit of Everton centre-back Jarrad Branthwaite made sense. Branthwaite is used to playing deeper and without the ball, and his recovery pace is excellent.
As shown below in data from smarterscout — which gives players a series of ratings from zero to 99 based on either how often they perform a specific action or how effective they are at it — De Ligt excels at ball retention and dribbling, but ranks low in defensive intensity and impact, which means he is not likely to get tight to his man, and is seemingly not the strongest in preventing the opposition from progressing further up the field. Although this is partly due to the nature of Bayern’s playing style last season, which provided him with fewer opportunities for aggressive defending.
In contrast to Branthwaite, a player who was renowned earlier in his career for his defensive positioning and ability to read danger, doesn’t seem to be the quickest these days. De Ligt has been caught on his heels a couple of times for both Juventus and Bayern, such as in this sequence below against Mainz last October.
The positioning of De Ligt (and most of his team-mates, frankly) to begin this move is questionable and he initially runs in the direction of an offside player, leaving space behind. Mainz don’t use it though, and instead slide in a player on the right. De Ligt initially still travels in the wrong direction before changing his run and that, combined with a lack of acceleration, ultimately results in him making a rash tackle.
That wasn’t an isolated incident.
De Ligt’s success while tackling dribblers has fallen from 68 per cent in his three seasons with Juventus to 58.5 per cent at Bayern. Additionally, 29 per cent of his fouls in the league have ended in yellow cards since joining the German side two years ago, rising from 12 and 16 per cent at Juventus and Ajax respectively, indicating that while he is committing fewer fouls now, he is being forced into making more cynical ones.
These numbers hint he may be vulnerable against pace, particularly in transition, because he simply hasn’t encountered enough of these situations. In that respect, deploying him next to Maguire or Lindelof could leave United quite exposed against agile attackers.
Throughout his career, De Ligt has played in teams who either dominate their league (Juventus) or dominate their league and possession (Ajax and Bayern). If 2023-24 was anything to go by, playing for United would be a completely different proposition as De Ligt would likely have less of the ball and be asked to do a lot more defensively.
A comparison of his defensive statistics with those of Martinez, Varane and Maguire from the past two league seasons shows the potential gap he will have to bridge, especially when it comes to defending deeper.
(Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
As you can see below, De Ligt has a significantly lower share of actions in the defensive third, suggesting his starting position has often been more advanced in comparison to that trio of United defenders.
De Ligt has also suffered a drop in his aerial prowess over the years.
Having won 65 per cent of his domestic-league aerial duels in 2018-19, his final season for Ajax, he won 64 per cent across those three years at Juventus, with that number dropping to 60 per cent in a Bayern shirt.
However, there is a caveat here as well.
United have added Ruud van Nistelrooy to Ten Hag’s staff following the latter’s contract being extended until summer 2026, with first-team coach Benni McCarthy departing along with Mitchell van der Gaag, the manager’s former No 2. Former United striker Van Nistelrooy notably found success as PSV Eindhoven head coach in the 2022-23 season by using a playing style that emphasised control over chaos and adapting on the fly to different situations out of possession.
Whether the changes result in a shift in United’s identity could be key in determining how successful De Ligt is at Old Trafford.
While concerns around De Ligt’s defensive abilities are valid, it should be noted again that injuries and team situations have played a part in his struggles. Additionally, the fact his defensive engagements are low could just be due to him not being in those situations enough rather than due to fundamental issues within his game.
De Ligt has had five different managers/head coaches over the past five seasons and featured consistently for all of them except Thomas Tuchel at Bayern when he was fit (though he did start eight of the final 13 games in the 2023-24 Bundesliga games). He deserves praise for this, given the varying tactical approaches he has had to fit into, and that suggests he could find a way to adapt to what Ten Hag is trying to do at United as well.
Signing De Ligt will be a tactical risk on new United co-owner INEOS’ end, but the potential for the move to work out may just be greater than the size of that gamble.
If he stays fit, and United move to a more possession-based style, then a deal would have a better chance of working out than many of the club’s recent forays into the market.
(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)