Why does Ronald Koeman want Luuk de Jong?

Luuk de Jong’s arrival at Barcelona came right at the end of the transfer window. He was a request from Ronald Koeman. Antoine Griezmann left, packing his bags for Atletico Madrid, while De Jong did the same, arriving from the Sanchez-Pizjuan to wear Barca’s No 17.

Koeman and De Jong coincided at the Dutch national team when the coach was in charge between 2018 and 2020, before the former came to Camp Nou.

Ansu Fati is nearly back, while Kun Aguero and Ousmane Dembele are potentially back in November. That left Memphis, Braithwaite and Demir, until then.

Koeman gets a forward who has scored 161 goals and given 77 assists in 371 games as a centre-forward. However his time in Seville wasn’t the best. 19 goals in 94 games.

“He’s a player I think is interesting, he’s a scorer, who can head it, he’ll be good for us,” said Joan Laporta on TV3. “We also had Julio Salinas in the Dream Team. I spoke to Jordi Cruyff and he said ‘my father sometimes had solutions that were outside the box’.”

De Jong knows it will be hard to get in the team. He’s 31 and there will be competition for a place.

“I’m different to the forwards here, I’m tall, good in the air. I know I won’t play every game, but I have a good relationship with Koeman. He knows me from the national team and knows when he needs a player for the end of the game who’s tall and good in the air.”

At 1.88m he’s the fourth tallest in the squad, behind Pique (1.94), Neto (1.90) and Busquets (1.89). But to give context, the next tallest forward is Dembele at 1.78m, Ansu Fati too, while Braithwaite Is 1.77 and Memphis 1.76. Luuk wins, height wise.