This one is kind of a doozy — and something you might read in Bild rather than The Athletic, but here we go.
Per The Athletic (as captured by @iMiaSanMia), the camp for former Bayern Munich center-back Matthijs de Ligt felt as if the club was playing games with him during talks this summer. According to the report, Vincent Kompany had even told De Ligt that the Dutchman was his No. 1 defender and that the move to sell him was not the coach’s choice:
According to a source close to Matthijs de Ligt, the player’s camp’s perception was that Bayern “were playing a game” during conversations about his prospects and wanted him to go. De Ligt met Vincent Kompany to ask why he felt as if he had been put up for sale. According to De Ligt’s camp, the player was told by Kompany that he was not responsible for the decision and that he was his “No 1 defender”. Their perception was that a choice had been made, at board level, to facilitate his departure.
When contacted by The Athletic, a Bayern spokesperson denied Kompany had said words to that effect.
This certainly adds a new wrinkled to the transfer saga.
De Ligt moved on to Manchester United, but — if true — this does add more weight to the rumors that were already out there, which indicated that Max Eberl and Christoph Freund were driving the decisions to sell key players this summer.
Could Kompany have really been denied a player he thought would be his No. 1 center-back? It seems doubtful, but if the focus was truly on shedding big salaries and rebuilding the team in the vision of Eberl and Freund, then just maybe it does hold a little weight.
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