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Alejandro Garnacho has a pre-match ritual of grabbing a coffee for his journey to Old Trafford. Friday’s news could be more stimulating.
Garnacho is not actively pursuing a move away from United but the club’s shift that any academy player is deemed fair game as far as sales go has drawn interested shoppers to their market stall.
It is paradoxical that United, still with a minus goal difference, would effectively beckon bidders to the table for a player who was their top scorer this season before the Southampton salvage operation. Garnacho has gone from unsellable to sellable in six months.
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He is a victim of the Premier League’s flawed profitability and sustainability rules that incentivise academy sales. That is manna of heaven for Chelsea and Manchester City, clubs whose academies have been cash-cows for several years.
United have not milked theirs but are famed for producing first team-ready prodigies. Yet Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, seemingly the poster boys of this new era, could have their images pulled down from bedroom walls of United-supporting boys and girls.
Garnacho’s omission from the Manchester derby squad last month is almost moot as speculation swirls. He has played in every game since, seeking to stay whereas Marcus Rashford is looking to go.
His style jars with Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation, though the Portuguese clarified Garnacho is striving to adapt. Garnacho was developed as a winger at a club famed for developing wingers and has been suddenly tasked with reinventing himself. He would be a like-for-like replacement for the silky Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on Napoli’s left wing.
United ought to be dedicating their resources to shifting Rashford, a player who wants to leave so much he said so publicly. Only Amad has tallied more goals than Garnacho for United this season and United’s attack is flaky.
With Rashford out of the fold, there is Antony, starter of three games all season. He last lined up in the Premier League in May. The two strikers, Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund, have five league goals between them. Then you’re looking at Ethan Wheatley.
Hojlund last scored over a month ago and is in the midst of his third separate eight-game goal drought at United. He is goalless in 12 appearances for Denmark and he will almost certainly be replaced by Zirkzee against Brighton on Sunday.
Hojlund has not scored in eight games
Within the last month, Amorim has substituted Zirkzee for Hojlund after he lost an aerial duel against Bournemouth and substituted Hojlund for Zirkzee after he lost an aerial duel against Southampton. The United manager evidently does not believe in either as the starting striker. Harry Maguire was ready to come on at 0-1 and he would not have been nearer the opponent’s area rather than his own had Amad not levelled as Maguire waited.
Zirkzee has at least regained confidence after thousands of fans heckled him when he was substituted against Newcastle at Old Trafford. He was a game-changer against Southampton, patient on the ball and prudent with it. Without Zirkzee, United would not have won.
Yet he is not a goalscorer. Zirkzee has four goals this term overall and Hojlund seven. Amorim has berated Hojlund a number of times for his feebleness against opponents. United played the best and worst teams in the league in their past two games and Hojlund’s performances in both were identical.
Unlike Zirkzee, he was not goaded upon his removal on Thursday evening. Hojlund’s rueful body language was telling. He received supportive applause and gratefully clapped the United fans as he sombrely strode towards the dugout.
Zirkzee was a game-changer against Southampton
But he is a striker overpriced and overpromoted, emblematic of the awry planning in the 2023 summer. That set United so far back they could remain in the bottom half of the league going into February.
“I think it’s a team problem,” Amorim opined when Hojlund’s ineffectual form was raised. “You can see it, it’s not just from now, it’s from the past.
“So we have clearly a lack of goals and a lack of threat. When you threaten the opponents, the opponents maybe don’t press you so high. So everything is connected. All the players have moments in this season.
“I think when we started this journey together, Rasmus was the player that was always scoring. So he can come back in the next game, we will see. But I think it’s more a team problem than a Rasmus problem.”
Amorim had the prolific Viktor Gyokeres at Sporting
Amorim is half-right. United signed two strikers with mediocre goalscoring records for £108.5m in successive summers when neither are good enough to lead the line.
Hojlund has been at United for 18 months now and was the Premier League Player of the Month last February. He should be dominating Taylor Harwood-Bellis. United matchgoers voiced their exasperation specifically with Hojlund more than once against Southampton.
David Moyes, another managerial mid-season appointment, was more forthright in his assessment of some of Everton’s attackers: “We are desperately needing to add some quality in certain areas, mainly to create and craft goals and finish as well.” So do United.
A potential solution is to have Amad as a false nine. He was trialled there by Erik ten Hag and is capable of having an impact from different roles. Amad in a fluid front three is a potential stop-gap if Hojlund never pulls on some shooting boots.
But United do not have quality depth. And will be even lighter if they let Garnacho go.