We could ship out De Jong tomorrow and I wouldn't care if we brought in any top class CM as a replacement.
You pick and choose what to respond to in posts and neglect others to defend your argument. I've said many times that Busquets is trash, I've been saying it for years, even before Frenkie.
My point has been he is SUCH trash, that a player that was brought in to play CM, who has played DM twice in over a year, a player who was played as fucking CB all preseason can walk into the team as DM and not be any worse than Busquets.
Second point is if he actually played DM, regularly, it is very likely he would become better than Busquets...which lets face it, isnt very hard.
I didnt say he'd be a world beater or even that him as DM would be where we should set the bar. It would however not be any worse than Busquets, and likely over a short time much better.
1) Frankie de jong was 100% brought it to eventually replace busquets, he is in no from shape or way a CM, if you can't see that, everything else I've said and will see will go miss understood.
2) he is a DM that's needs the Midfield to be built around him for him to Excel, except he is not sufficient ly special for us to do that.
He was brought in to be busquets long term replacement, a different player, with a different set of skills, but one we thought would be the person who makes that transition go smoothly.
He has failed to do so.
He has even failed to be a proper CM, which you seem too believe he is,he has failed to the tune of 2 teenagers being considered his equal or superior.
My point is and has always been, if a 25 year old who we bought to he one of the best midfielders in the world, another thing he as failed at,if that person cannot bench a 34 year old or 18 year old. Through consistent performances on the pitch, then what are we even talking about?.
Everything outside of that is just noise, he cannot bench the old slow defensive midfielder we have. Whenever given a chance he has looked just as bad if not worst, he was way worst last week than busquets this week.
Having failed at doing that. At least start in CM, but he's failed at that too.
Does busquets need replacing? Yes everyone know this.
Is Frankie the man for the job? All evidence says no, be cause as trash as busquets is, Frankie is worst as a single pivot & not special enough for us to change to a double pivot.