{"id":1228,"date":"2026-04-08T23:37:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:37:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:37:57","slug":"we-cannot-let-him-go-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/?p=1228","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We Cannot Let Him Go Elsewhere&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><em>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand wants his former club to go all out to sign AZ Alkmaar midfielder Kees Smit this summer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old has been likened to Pedri on more than one occasion by Netherlands head coach Ronald Koeman, and Ferdinand firmly believes he should be a key target for the Red Devils:<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/manunews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120838\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on ManUNews.com<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cKees Smit is the truth, man, I\u2019m telling you, he\u2019s one you go, \u2018I\u2019m buying him\u2019. It doesn\u2019t have to be for now. I hope he does come in and takes the world by storm, but if we\u2019ve got to wait six months to a year for him, I do not care. We cannot let him go elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen him play a couple of times now, and that\u2019s all I need to see. I\u2019ve seen the clips\u2026 man. I\u2019ve spoken to some guys in Holland, friends. The kid has got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fave.co\/48hhq46\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Get a 2007-09 Rio Ferdinand Man Utd home kit from Classic Football Shirts here<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Smit plays the same position as Tonali<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"0fab81ce12e48a0794275e1d82449fb1\" image-id=\"1075473547\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>The Dutchman is a deep-lying playmaker who likes to spray passes from a holding role in midfield. He possesses many similar traits to another Man Utd target \u2013 Newcastle\u2019s <strong>Sandro Tonali<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Some United supporters would suggest pursuing both players, but there won\u2019t be room in the budget to sign the pair. Newcastle want in excess of \u00a3100m for Tonali, while journalist Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that AZ want more than \u20ac60m (\u00a352m) for Smit.<\/p>\n<h2>Man Utd will face stiff competition<\/h2>\n<p>Several other Premier League clubs, including Liverpool and Arsenal, have been credited with an interest in Smit, while Real Madrid are believed to be big fans of the youngster as well.<\/p>\n<p>AZ would consider selling if a team matches their asking price, so if United make an early move for the midfielder, they could well steal a march on the competition.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=ManUNews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Want more news on Man Utd? Add Man U News as a preferred source on Google<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}