Manchester United have signed Ajax midfielder Donny Van de Beek, the latest of the Dutch champions' homegrown talents to depart following the recent big-money moves of Matthijs de Ligt, Frenkie de Jong, and Hakim Ziyech.

United have agreed to pay £39.3million plus add-ons for the 23-year-old Dutch international and it's not difficult to see why. A central midfielder who can play as a six, eight, or 10, Van de Beek is a box-to-box creative attacker who can also sit deep and dictate play. He does everything a midfielder is supposed to do very well and will add real quality to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's squad.

Where Van de Beek will fit in

Having scored eight goals and provided five assists in 23 league appearances last season (the Eredivisie ended prematurely after 25 games), Van De Beek can be expected to contribute wherever necessary, be it as the 10 or one of two pivots in a 4-2-3-1 system, or as an eight on the right of a 4-3-3. His movement off the ball and reading of the game has been crucial to Ajax's possession-based style of play over the last few years, floating in and out of space to either link play or drive the team forward.

Ajax had the highest average possession share in the league last season with 60.1 per cent, excelling in the kinds of situations that United have occasionally struggled in. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team were undone regularly by sides who sat deep and hit them on the counter, with United unable to get the ball through the lines quickly enough to cause damage and punished while overexposed. This was certainly the case before Bruno Fernandes arrived and galvanised the team, providing genuine attacking threat from midfield ahead of Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic, but without his cutting edge United simply lacked inventiveness and quality in the final third.