Manchester United selling Anthony Elanga for £15m while valuing Alejandro Garnacho at £70m is the sort of mistake which sums up their transfer failures.
Manchester United are abysmal at transfers. That is no revelation. Their abhorrent record of post-Ferguson signings is painfully well known. But they are arguably worse at every aspect of player sales and not nearly enough is made of how that catastrophic failure has been more consistently damaging than poor recruitment to their hopes of any meaningful rebuild.
They have never generated more than £100m in a single season through selling players (four Premier League clubs did this season alone). They are the only current Premier League club whose record sale came before 2011. They still count David Beckham to Real Madrid in 2003 as their fourth-largest sale ever, and two of the players above him – Angel Di Maria and Romelu Lukaku – were offloaded at a loss compared to what they were originally signed for.
It is, in a sentence, entirely absurd to think they might have £310m worth of players, never mind that they will sell as much and still have the bones of a squad left for Ruben Amorim to work with.
Last summer was a tentative step vaguely in the right direction. The £92m generated in exchange for Mason Greenwood, Willy Kambwala, Alvaro Fernandez, Donny van de Beek, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Facundo Pellistri, Will Fish, Hannibal Mejbri and Scott McTominay was largely pure profit-shaped and represented some difficult decisions being made by a club not afraid to make mistakes or look stupid.
McTominay thriving with Napoli provides a handy stick with which critics can beat Manchester United, and there was more than an element of hands being forced over Mason Greenwood, whose true colours could not be concealed for a full season in his eternal professional struggle between talent and application.
But realistically it should matter not to Manchester United what players do when they leave, so long as they are remunerated appropriately for departures being sanctioned at the best time for the club. If Chelsea or Manchester City carried any regret when a former player subsequently showed them up it would have to be amortised over the next five decades; competent clubs accept it as part of the transfer game and move on to the next deal.
It is why Amorim will and is entirely right to sidestep laborious questions about Marcus Rashford and Antony each week, why the Portuguese can set aside any frustration at their new-found confidence and aptitude since leaving. They have for all intents and purposes been deemed surplus to requirements and performing well on loan only enhances Manchester United’s chances of securing a better deal.
But selling Anthony Elanga for £20m while valuing Alejandro Garnacho at around £70m is the sort of regime-spanning gross miscalculation which will be tough to move past.
Nottingham Forest’s winning goal at the City Ground to ensure a first league double over Manchester United in the Premier League era was another belated nail in the Erik ten Hag coffin. Elanga has long since stated that the Dutchman wasn’t the reason he chose to leave in July 2023, but his explanation that “I just wanted to play” places the ball back in the court of a manager who did not share that vision.
Ten Hag favoured the development of Garnacho instead and at least in part because of FFP pressure following the disastrous Antony signing, Elanga had to be sacrificed for a pittance.
And that is the oversight. It is easy to suggest Manchester United’s decision to sell Elanga has been exposed as a mistake by his Forest brilliance but the simple truth is stylistic: that he is a perfect counter-attacking forward bears no relevance to prior reservations over his suitability against packed defences.
The problem will always be the price. When Liverpool apply an automatic £25m tax to any player it is mind-boggling that Manchester United only received a guaranteed £15m from a Premier League rival for a forward who scored a Champions League knockout goal for them away at Atletico Madrid barely a year earlier.
But the still image of Garnacho sprawled on the ground, having bounced off Elanga seconds before the Sweden international completed his unopposed run from box to box before scoring with his weaker foot, was irresistible from a narrative viewpoint.
Not content with the unflattering nature of that comparison, Garnacho proceeded to turn in another display belying Manchester United’s asking price. The majority of the visitors’ best chances fell his way but the Argentinean could not get a single shot on target from six attempts, did not find a teammate with any of his seven crosses, still shows no signs of a connection on his flank with Patrick Dorgu and was booked for kicking the ball away after being caught entirely unnecessarily offside.
These Premier League games ultimately do not matter for Manchester United beyond an extra few million quid in terms of potential prize money, which should take on a greater importance under the cost-cutting rule of Sir Jim Ratcliffe but will never turn the needle quite like stopping free lunches or charity donations. But players cannot afford to share that mindset under Amorim, who will demand only the best in each game like any other coach.
Forest provided that in spades to push ever closer to an unthinkable Champions League place. Ryan Yates was phenomenal, Murillo wonderfully maintained the cleanliness of Matz Sels’ sheet in the final minute of stoppage time and Nuno Espirito Santo showed that Portuguese managers need not rigidly swear by only one formation when he seamlessly switched shape in the first half upon an injury to Ola Aina.
But Elanga was the inevitable star on yet another chastening evening for Manchester United, and his amiable post-match magnanimity somehow only stuck the knife in further. “Coming to Forest was about playing,” he said. “I learnt a lot at Manchester United. I appreciate them a lot.”
It’s just a shame the feeling wasn’t mutual when it needed to be.
