The Dutchman made De Jong his first-choice midfield target after United appointed him following Ajax’s run to the 2019 Champions League semi-finals.
“I did my best; I set up meetings with him, where it was Richard and John involved as well, to pursue him to come over,” Ten Hag said in an interview with The Athletic, referring to former chief executive Richard Arnold and football director John Murtough.
“He could have been very important building the team, not only that year but for the future. But we didn’t make it.”
United negotiated with Barcelona for several weeks during the summer of 2022, but De Jong stayed at the Catalan club. Ten Hag also said managers were not routinely involved in the financial side of negotiations, despite the perception that they led recruitment discussions.
“Everyone’s thinking the manager is doing the negotiations, that I’m involved in financial issues, but I was never,” he said.
Ten Hag said Manchester United’s leadership wanted an attacking identity built around pressing after losing possession and controlling games high up the pitch. His Ajax team had impressed on their way to the Champions League semi-finals, beating Real Madrid and Juventus along the way.
“So our identity should be dynamic, attacking football, counter-press, and that is what Richard and John demanded me to do,” Ten Hag said. “Play possession in the opponent’s half. Of course they want to win. Old Trafford is the Theatre of Dreams. They want adventure football. You then need the profiles.”
De Jong was not the only midfielder Ten Hag wanted. He also pushed for Declan Rice, but West Ham United were unwilling to let the England international leave.
“The issue was that West Ham didn’t want to let him go. I think we could have done more to test,” Ten Hag said. “We were on one page, they tried, but I don’t know how the process went. The point is, at United you need outstanding players.”
Ten Hag’s preferred answer to United’s scoring problems was Harry Kane, then at Tottenham Hotspur. He said the striker was his priority for the summer of 2023.
“I said to them, ‘I want only one player – and you know who’,” he said. “I fought for it. I heard that he was very positive, but I never spoke with him about the issue. I don’t know how the decision process went with John, Richard, the Glazers.”
Kane ultimately moved to Bayern Munich. Ten Hag argued that United needed established players who could bring authority as well as quality, rather than relying too heavily on prospects still developing.
“I think a club like United, you need these profiles to be successful. Personality, and they are mature, and they’re accountable,” he said.
Ten Hag, now FC Twente’s technical director, left United in October 2024. His comments offer another account of the recruitment choices that shaped his spell at Old Trafford — and the midfielder he believed could have helped define it.