In the match against Athletic Bilbao, the Dutch midfielder missed the chance to show his quality.
Before officially entering the new season, Manchester United face the final challenge in the friendly series called Athletic Bilbao.
After fielding his strongest team against Lens, coach Erik Ten Hag created the conditions for a number of reserves and emerging players to compete.
Therefore, it is understandable that when Man Utd went through a difficult 90 minutes against Bilbao, they were also led by the opponent with a goal from Nico Williams in the first half.
The Red Devils weren’t able to avoid a loss until the closing seconds of injury time, owing to a remarkable performance from Facundo Pellistri.
As mentioned, this is an opportunity for the extras to assert their worth, and Pellistri obviously did that. However, Donny Van De Beek is an opposite case.
In fact, De Beek had relatively impressive performances in pre-season, but in the final friendly he was a strong disappointment.
Arranging the main kick in the position of an attacking midfielder, De Beek could not create breakthrough moments or scoring opportunities for his teammates, and he almost did not leave any impression on the foreign field. minus 1 shot on target.
Data from Sofascore show that the Dutch star has only 19 touches of the ball in 45 minutes of being on the field, causing Man Utd to lose control of the ball 5 times and make only 9 accurate passes.
It should be noted that De Beek did not have any passes to create a scoring opportunity against Bilbao, he did not actively support the defense and was once dribbled by the opponent.
With a performance that could not be weaker, it was not surprising that De Beek was withdrawn from the field after only 45 minutes of play.