Frenkie de Jong's Future at Barcelona Under Threat
Frenkie de Jong’s place at Barcelona is under scrutiny again, and this time the doubts are coming from his own country.
Dutch journalist Valentijn Driessen has suggested the midfielder could be heading into his final season at the club, with the arrival of Rodri and De Jong’s latest injury casting a long shadow over his future.
Rodri’s arrival shifts the ground
Barcelona have just brought in one of the most complete midfielders in world football. Rodri is expected to sit at the heart of Hansi Flick’s plans, dictating the tempo and anchoring the side in the role De Jong has often craved for himself.
That changes the landscape.
“They already tried to get rid of him before, and now they bring Rodri,” Driessen said on De Telegraaf’s podcast, via SPORT. The Dutchman pointed to De Jong’s injury record and the club’s previous attempts to move him on as signs that the midfielder’s status is no longer untouchable.
Driessen doesn’t see Barcelona actively pushing De Jong out while he is sidelined.
“I don’t think that now that he’s injured they’re trying to transfer him – I can’t imagine it – but I do think he’s in his last season at Barça,” he claimed, hinting that the decisive moment could arrive once everyone is fit and fighting for places.
A dream that may not last
De Jong has never hidden his ambition: he wanted to spend the rest of his career at Barcelona. He said it, he repeated it, and he built his life around it.
Driessen, though, poured cold water on that idea.
“He wanted to stay at Barcelona until the end of his career, but that’s a privilege granted to very few players,” he said. In his view, De Jong does not fit the profile of a midfielder who will remain a guaranteed starter at the Camp Nou deep into his thirties.
“He’s not the sort of player you’d think would remain a first-team regular at Barcelona until he’s 35. In short, he won’t see out the end of his career there.”
The question now is not just whether De Jong stays, but what he becomes if he does.
Can De Jong and Rodri really coexist?
On paper, a midfield with both De Jong and Rodri looks elegant. On the pitch, Driessen isn’t convinced it works.
“You always have to perform to keep playing. If an excellent player comes in who plays in your position, I can’t imagine those two playing together,” he said.
De Jong has built his game on controlling possession, gliding past pressure, and knitting together phases from deep. Rodri does much of that too, but with an added layer of positional discipline and defensive security that has made him the reference point in his role.
Two conductors. One orchestra. Only one central podium.
That leaves De Jong facing an uncomfortable reality: adapt or accept a reduced role.
A tactical crossroads
For Driessen, the only real path to coexistence lies higher up the pitch. To share the field with Rodri, De Jong would likely need to play more advanced, take more risks, and offer more in the final third.
That is exactly where the Dutch journalist sees the problem.
“He might be able to try, but he needs to be more attacking, and that’s usually the point of criticism: that he lacks that. He’s never managed it,” Driessen argued.
It’s a harsh assessment, but it taps into a long-running debate around De Jong: is he influential enough in decisive areas to justify building a team around him, especially when another elite midfielder arrives in his zone?
Hansi Flick’s view will decide everything. Barcelona’s squad is stacked with midfielders who can interpret different roles, and the coach’s system once De Jong returns from injury will dictate whether the Dutchman remains central or becomes a luxury option.
There is no guarantee Rodri’s signing automatically pushes De Jong out of the starting XI. But the comfort he once enjoyed has gone. The competition has changed, the hierarchy is shifting, and for the first time since he arrived in Catalonia, the idea of Frenkie de Jong finishing his career in Barcelona colours feels more like a romantic notion than a realistic plan.
