Alejandro Garnacho’s latest misdemeanour won’t endear him to any coach who might have been tempted to take a punt on a player Manchester United desperately need shot of…
It’s not entirely Alejandro Garnacho’s fault. Like all of us, he’s a product of his environment and his, for the last five years, has been one of the most dysfunctional in football. But even in a sea of sheltered, selfish stars, Garnacho’s attitude is up there among the most pungent to have stunk out Old Trafford in recent seasons.
He’s in good company. The likelihood is that in less than a fortnight, Garnacho will return to Manchester United as part of a four-strong bomb squad for whom, to the surprise of absolutely no outside Carrington, there has been little interest amid a fire-sale in which the Red Devils will struggle to make half of the ridiculous sum they originally hoped.
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Garnacho was expected to fetch the highest fee, originally in the region of £60million before – with no justification whatsoever – United bumped up the price by £10million. All for a player Ruben Amorim told to ‘pray’ for a new club.
United really have not got the hang of this selling lark. The player they expected to make them the most money appears set to be the one still darkening their door come the start of the season.
Marcus Rashford will find a new club, but most likely on loan with an option like that Aston Villa have so far refused (they are in enough PSR trouble). Jadon Sancho could be heading for Turkey with the last year of an undeserved salary seemingly safe. And Real Betis will probably come to some arrangement over Antony. But what about Garnacho?
Doubtless United are pitching a premium, prodigious winger, a Puskas winner, an international with the World Cup winners, but what they are selling, no one is buying. Certainly not yet. While it is possible a market will form for Garnacho, it might be made up of summer shoppers waiting for the yellow stickers down the whoopsie aisle as closing time approaches at the end of the window.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. It should not have been this way. When Garnacho stepped up from the youth team – to call him an Academy graduate is a stretch since he was no longer a schoolboy when he joined from Atletico Madrid – he was seen as one of United’s great hopes. As is too often the case with young talent at the very highest level, his profile grew disproportionally to his performances. And there were warning signs from the beginning; Erik ten Hag spoke more than once of the need for the teenager to buck up his ideas when he broke into the first team.
His first senior start only came after warnings over his ‘attitude, resilience, determination’. Pushed on what specifically Garnacho had done wrong, Ten Hag gave him a pass.
“Not wrong. It’s young kids, eh? They have to grow and to raise their personality, and they have to know what are the laws and demands in top football.
“It’s not only about a trick or about scoring one goal. No, we have to win football games and that demands a lot and then you have to fulfil every day the highest standards.”
Eighty-seven starts and a new manager later, it’s clear the message never got through. Garnacho’s patches of form over the last two-and-a-half years are roughly equal in number to the headaches he’s given Ten Hag and Amorim.
Amid the club’s desperate attempts to portray Garnacho as the present and the future, Ten Hag had little choice but to persist with the winger, then a teenager, his youth earning unmerited passes from the increasingly beleaguered boss over his attitude, sloppiness, and social media mis-steps. Amorim, presumably given fair warning upon his arrival, was less forgiving. Garnacho was dropped for the derby in December, not just for this, but also as a consequence of behaviour patterns observed around Carrington. Too many strikes so he was out. Then in. Out again. In a bit, now definitely out.
Garnacho was of an impressionable age when he became team-mates with his hero Cristiano Ronaldo. But the apprentice picked up too few of the master’s good traits; only the arrogance minus achievements, the ego without the work ethic. Indeed, according to the Manchester Evening News, Garnacho was branded a ‘f***ing Ronaldo wannabe’ by one of Marcus Rashford’s entourage, presumably before the pair bonded recently, perhaps over their mutual tardiness.
Posting a photo of himself in ‘brother’ Rashford’s Villa shirt boiled plenty of p*ss but Garnacho’s bridges were already torched at Old Trafford. All he achieved with his holiday pic was a thinning out of the few United fans who still stood in his corner.
It won’t enamour Garnacho to any the few suitors he may have had. Certainly not when United are asking for silly money.
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It would be daft even if Garnacho didn’t come with the baggage. Managers today want low maintenance, high performance. But when it comes to those most basic expectations, Garnacho seems to have got things woefully muddled.
For coaches looking for a forward with range, Garnacho is not their guy. As a winger – Amorim has seen he’s no No.10 – he doesn’t have lightning speed and, coming off the left touchline, defenders know he has little intention of going outside them. Garnacho is most effective in a counter-attacking set up, lacking the guile to break massed ranks. And his best performances tend to come off the bench.
If the anecdotal evidence doesn’t make buyers beware, the stats ought. Thirty-five matches separated his two Premier League assists last season – Manchester City’s goalkeeper doubled that tally – and he created only four big chances, fewer than 113 other players. Garnacho wasn’t much more effective when he was on the end of the opportunities. Though he scored six league goals, he missed 14 big chances.
Such form isn’t that of a £70million player. With the statistical context contradicting the notion that he’s being dragged down by the underperformers around him, he would be dear at half that price. Then you consider the character witness testimonies… why the shuddering f*** do United and Garnacho seem so confident of attracting good offers?
Perhaps the bravado masks a fear from the club and the player that they could be stuck with one other. Almost certainly, each will have to tolerate the other when pre-season starts. But parting is a must. And both United and Garnacho will have to try harder to make it happen.
