{"id":271787,"date":"2025-11-19T14:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/271787\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T14:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:44:17","slug":"wes-brown-praises-matthijs-de-ligt-after-overcoming-difficult-first-season-at-man-utd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/271787\/","title":{"rendered":"Wes Brown praises Matthijs de Ligt after overcoming &#8216;difficult&#8217; first season at Man Utd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former Manchester United defender Wes Brown has praised Matthijs de Ligt for his excellent performances this season.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/tag\/matthijs-de-ligt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthijs de Ligt<\/a> is the only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/club\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> player to have played every <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/tag\/premier-league\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Premier League<\/a> minute this term.<\/p>\n<p>The former Ajax, Juventus, and Bayern Munich defender was one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/news\/every-man-utd-player-on-international-duty-in-november-2025-including-two-academy-prospects\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">20 United players to earn a call-up<\/a> for the November internationals \u2013 after missing out on a place in the Netherlands squad in October.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/mail.png\" alt=\"mail icon\"\/>Join our newsletter for news &amp; smart analysis. <\/p>\n<p>This shows that De Ligt\u2019s stock has risen, and he is benefiting from having an uninterrupted pre-season in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old is having one of the best years of his career, on an individual note, and he will be keen to continue that now the international break has come to an end.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2247191740-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Matthijs de Ligt playing against Lithuania\" class=\"wp-image-309993\" \/>Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos\/Getty ImagesWes Brown impressed by Matthijs de Ligt improvement<\/p>\n<p>Eleven matches into the 2025\/26 season, De Ligt has proved his worth with a series of strong performances in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/tag\/ruben-amorim\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ruben Amorim\u2019s<\/a> preferred back-three system.<\/p>\n<p>De Ligt scored his first goal of the season last time out to rescue a point in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/match-coverage\/five-things-we-learned-as-manchester-united-draw-2-2-with-tottenham\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">United\u2019s 2-2 draw against Tottenham<\/a>. It was his third since joining the club from Bayern Munich, but now he is one of the first names on the teamsheet.<\/p>\n<p>Only three players have won more aerial duels in the Premier League than De Ligt (39), including James Tarkowski, Virgil van Dijk and Sepp van den Berg.<\/p>\n<p>Former United defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/tag\/wes-brown\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wes Brown<\/a> has been singing De Ligt\u2019s praises after overcoming a \u2018difficult\u2019 first season at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s [De Ligt] done really well,\u201d Brown told United United United media. \u201cHe\u2019s been very consistent. You can see he\u2019s got a good focus on him this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, liking that position he\u2019s in, in the middle. Obviously he can play [on the] right as well but I just feel, whatever the manager has said or the other coaches, he\u2019s really just thinking about football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis defending as a whole, whether it\u2019s in the air or tackling. He\u2019s been at the forefront of the defence, taking that step forward, and he\u2019s been a big part of it. You can\u2019t fault him because he had a difficult one last year where people were questioning whether he was good enough or not because he wasn\u2019t consistent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel, for whatever has happened, he\u2019s just got better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown added: \u201cWhen we first bought him, we could see he was good, but there was a mistake here and a mistake there. There has been mistakes in the whole team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this season I can see the focus on him [De Ligt]. He\u2019s smiling, he\u2019s happy, so for whatever reason, he is really enjoying it. I think that\u2019s a big part of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone has always known his talent, but it\u2019s about the consistency. When he finishes his career, that\u2019s where the praise will come. It\u2019s consistency. We know he can do it, but at the moment, he\u2019s doing it every week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wes Brown record for Man Utd<\/p>\n<p>Brown was a highly versatile and resilient defender who graduated from United\u2019s academy before winning numerous major trophies under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedinfocus.com\/tag\/sir-alex-ferguson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sir Alex Ferguson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He could play at both centre-back and right-back, with his time in the first team spanning between 1996 and 2011.<\/p>\n<p>       Who should start as striker for Man Utd with Benjamin Sesko injured?     <\/p>\n<p>Brown made 362 appearances for United, scoring five goals and registering 12 assists.<\/p>\n<p>He also picked up 39 yellow cards and was sent off once after receiving two yellow cards \u2013 against Liverpool in 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Manchester United defender Wes Brown has praised Matthijs de Ligt for his excellent performances this season. Matthijs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,18043,101,56,54,55,111808],"class_list":{"0":"post-271787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-matthijs-de-ligt","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-wes-brown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}