Barcelona: Lionel Messi runs rings around teammates in training
Frenkie de Jong's agent has shot down surprise Italian claims that he has been offered to Liverpool and a host of other clubs amid apparent struggles to play with Lionel Messi. The Barca board worked hard to bring the Dutchman to the Camp Nou, but the midfielder has endured a testing first campaign in Spain.
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"But we don't sit down for half an hour to talk about football. I don't do that with other players, nor did I at Ajax.
"During a conversation like this, he mainly indicates what he wants.
"It's not that I'm the person who will tell him how I want him to play."
Last year, former Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood claimed Jurgen Klopp was offered the chance to sign De Jong.
There has been suggestion that De Jong struggles to play with Messi at Barcelona (Image: GETTY)
“[Fabinho] has picked up some injuries during the time he’s been at Liverpool,” Sherwood said on The Analysis Show.
“I know that there was a couple of players that were offered to Jurgen Klopp.
“Frenkie de Jong, the boy from Ajax, who ended up going to Barcelona, who is a more controlled, cultured player.
“Or someone like Fabinho who likes to play at that tempo and break up the game a little bit more and gets around the pitch. So he had one choice.
“It’s an easy job, I think we’ve said it time and time again on this show, to scout for Jurgen Klopp is easy because we know exactly how he wants to play.
“We know how he wants to play, we know what he likes from his midfield players, industrious midfield players who like to keep it simple, can move forward with the pace of the game, like Fabinho does. He is very important.
“Frenkie de Jong wouldn’t be able to [do the same as Fabinho]… he would be now there, and he’s brilliant at it.
“But he would be that sitting midfield player just in front, a No 6 is what we call it and he would dictate the tempo of the game.
“But he wouldn’t be able to play at a very high energy.”