Donny van de Beek is preparing to experience Old Trafford as a Manchester United player for the first time as his new journey begins with a Premier League match against Crystal Palace.
Unfortunately there will be no fans in attendance so he will have to wait another while before he can hear our favourite chants.
The 23-year-old has done an exclusive interview with Inside United magazine following his arrival in Manchester.
Van de Beek enjoyed his first run-out in a United shirt in last weekend’s pre-season friendly at Aston Villa and earned praise from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
As you could only imagine Van de Beek is keen to be involved against Palace on Saturday.
“Everyone has helped me a lot and wanted to make me feel at home and this is really good for me and it has given me the confidence to play,” Van de Beek said. “It’s a family club, I feel this already from the first seconds I have been here.
“Old Trafford is an amazing stadium. The nicest thing will be when the fans are there too and I cannot wait to play for the first time in front of them. I hope to see them soon in the stadium because for our team they will give us a lot of power when we can have them with us.
“I watched United a lot [when I was younger,” he adds. “Because a lot of Dutch players have played here and this was nice to watch if you’re a young kid and you see the Dutch players there.
“Daley, Edwin, Robin van Persie… you see them. They won a lot of titles and United always played nice football, which was always good to see.”
Regarding Van de Beek’s comments on ‘always playing nice football’, I can’t help but wonder what he thinks of the football we played under Louis van Gaal!
Asked about linking up with his new team-mates, he said: “I cannot wait to play many games with them. There are a lot of young players in the group, around my age, and I think this is a really big opportunity for me to help the team.
“It’s always good to play with these kinds of players, you can learn from everybody. Everybody has their own qualities and you have to pick things up from them. I’m really happy I can play with them. That is what I want and I hope together we can make a really nice future for the club.”
Us too, Donny, but there’s a lot of work to do.
Firstly, the board needs to act quick and get more of Solskjaer’s transfer targets in before the deadline passes.
Van de Beek is an addition piece to the jigsaw Solskjaer is trying to build and the Glazers must understand that more investment is required if we are to have a team that will challenge this season.
That should be the aim as you can see it is at Stamford Bridge ahead of the new campaign — not that they will be successful.
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