Manchester City set to offer Nigel de Jong bumper £25m deal

[Slim]

Worth every penny and as Ted says he seems genuinely committed to the club. You cannot allow the clock to run down below two years for your key players. [highlight]In my view he's one of the best defensive midfielders in the world[/highlight] and when it takes his fancy he's perfectly capable of surging forward and delivering a quality pass. Now just give us that goal Nigel. Saturday please.

One of?

Who is the better one then?

essien

Was. Not now.

he was very good again last night and has the added dimension of being able to all that De Jong does AND score goals too. IMO he is the better player, but its all about opinions.

Of course Essien is better than de Jong, gets in forward positions and actually is worth passing to, better in the air. Who the fuck even thinks there is a debate here? He's not better than Busquets or Gago either. I am sure if I were to put effort into it I could come up with a pretty sizable list of players better than him.

Good? Yes. Best in the world? You're having a laugh.

[Biamp]

Of course Essien is better than de Jong, gets in forward positions and actually is worth passing to, better in the air. Who the fuck even thinks there is a debate here? He's not better than Busquets or Gago either. I am sure if I were to put effort into it I could come up with a pretty sizable list of players better than him.

Good? Yes. Best in the world? You're having a laugh.

Gago is better than De Jong, since when? Gago barely makes the Real bench. Did you really mean Gago or someone else?

[citydonz]

As an all round player no way is he the best in the world.

I do think that he is the best for us, he is one of the first players (Like Kompany) to look 100% committed. He grabs games by the balls and gets stuck in. Isn't that what we were all begging for?

So he might not be the best in the world on his own, but he is a MASSIVE piece of the jigsaw here, a team player and a long term investment.

Sign him up.

[colonel_muck]

yeah an absolute must have for the future. great signing, and could see him captaining the club if the worst happens in the summer. get the impression he really loves it here too.

[colonel_muck]

Worth every penny and as Ted says he seems genuinely committed to the club. You cannot allow the clock to run down below two years for your key players. [highlight]In my view he's one of the best defensive midfielders in the world[/highlight] and when it takes his fancy he's perfectly capable of surging forward and delivering a quality pass. Now just give us that goal Nigel. Saturday please.

One of?

Who is the better one then?

mascherano is better imo. but thats it. i just like nige more!

[Slim]

Of course Essien is better than de Jong, gets in forward positions and actually is worth passing to, better in the air. Who the fuck even thinks there is a debate here? He's not better than Busquets or Gago either. I am sure if I were to put effort into it I could come up with a pretty sizable list of players better than him.

Good? Yes. Best in the world? You're having a laugh.

Gago is better than De Jong, since when? Gago barely makes the Real bench. Did you really mean Gago or someone else?

The young lad they have anchoring the midfield at Real, not Alonso.

Edit:Sami Khediri, just looked it up and probably still spelling it wrong.

[Arjan Van Schotte]

whether or not he's the "best" (mmmm define the criteria) DM in the world is irrelevant to me. He's a great team player and a model professional on and off the pitch by all accounts - and he's certainly in my mind one of the "best" available to do the job we ask him to.

A great signing and well worth keeping for however long. You can certainly see him in a champions league final, and i doubt he'd let himself down.

[dick dastardley]

i think Big Nige needs to show Boateng how to put a tackle in!!!

[mcfc1632]

I think that it is hard to 'compare' this role in the way that you can compare strikers, GKs etc. For me he is better than Essien as a DM but I would understand why lots of people would think Essien a better player because of his link up play and getting forward

Eiether way NDJ is a top top player and we need to secure him for years to come

[Slim]

The defensive midfielder as seen by Slim.

Tackling: His most important job is to stop attacks and the best way to do this is the tackle. de Jong is probably on par with anyone in the world in this regard, he can tackle standing and sliding and his scythe tackle is brilliantly timed 99% of the time(the 1% is a yellow, it comes with a risk).

Pace: While he doesn't need to get down the flanks like a winger or fullback, he does need quick pace over short distances to cover a lot of ground in the middle of the park and track late arriving midfielders like Lampard, Scholes, etc. If you want a player who failed at this miserably look at Hamann vs Lampard in the 6-0 drubbing against Chelsea, de Jong ticks this box nicely without being outstanding here.

Passing: While a ball winning midfielder's first job is to get the ball, his secondary role in this is to turn around play quickly and start counter attacks, best chances in previous years for us have been when a central midfielder(Ireland was surprisingly good at this) nicks the ball and catches 5-6 opposition players out of position. de Jong unfortunately relies on players to close the gap to him and offer a simple outlet before taking the ball forward. He has gotten better but he fails quite a lot at unleashing forwards with long driving passes, I appreciate the fact he tries, but he probably shouldn't.

Heading: When the opposition keeper has the ball, his kicks either from his hands of a goal kick will often land in the area of the pitch that de Jong is covering, additionally if Hart's kick is met by an opposition head, the ball will fall in the same area. The defensive midfielder not only needs to be capable of heading the ball, but of directing it to a team mate. Unfortunately from what I have seen, City are god awful at heading to a teammate and de Jong is no exception, coupled with the fact the guy is the size of Paris Hilton's dog and he doesn't offer up a great aerial asset to the team.