Even at their lowest ebb, as an institution Manchester United are blockbuster viewing.
Performances on the pitch can be (and often are) the footballing equivalent of watching paint dry, but that only serves to crank up the volume of controversial boardroom decisions, to thrust recruitment policies under the microscope and to magnify the holes to pick at in a threadbare squad.
At the centre of it all, motionless in the eye of the storm to such an extent that you could forget he was there, is Kobbie Mainoo.
Kobbie Mainoo, one of the top five teenagers in world football last year. Kobbie Mainoo, scorer of the deciding goal in United’s unlikely FA Cup triumph. Kobbie Mainoo, keeper of the ball and winner of the ball. Kobbie Mainoo, sitter on the bench. Kobbie Mainoo, on the transfer list.
The rise In a maddening 2023/24 season under Erik ten Hag bright moments were few and far between (although what wouldn’t Ruben Amorim have given for an eighth-place finish a month ago), but the unassuming lad from Stockport was a shining light, a diamond ring in the gutter of the Dutchman’s midfield.
Casemiro had descended into his inexplicable doldrums, Christian Eriksen was running out of legs and Sofyan Amrabat, drafted in on loan, was just doing his best.
Enter Mainoo, drip-fed into the team at first then stringing together 23 consecutive Premier League appearances, many of them starts.
His ability on the ball was immediately apparent; he could shimmy into spaces that weren’t there a split-second ago, could thread a needle with a pass and could charge back for a goal-line clearance all in the space of a minute.
That’s not to mention his goal threat and its positive correlation with the jeopardy of the situation. His last-gasp winner at Wolverhampton Wanderers comes to mind, closely followed by his turn-and-curl against Liverpool.
The Englishman also dazzled on his debut for the national side, his uncanny ability to somehow play as if he had ten years of experience at the top level no different in white than in red.
The stall Then came Ruben Amorim and his 3-4-3 system, with its demanding pivot and exacting number 10 roles, and an already off-colour (weren’t they all?) Mainoo started to look a little lost.
This is no Amorim hatchet job – the Portuguese inherited a chalice dripping with poison and a squad which didn’t know what day it was. And lest we forget Mainoo only stopped being a teenager two months ago in an era becoming infamous for burning out young talent.
While the current United boss would probably love to jettison many of the players in his squad, in Mainoo he has one for whom any top manager would give an arm and a leg.
That he hasn’t found him a role in his best XI yet is understandable, but if a player of Mainoo’s quality can’t be accommodated then that’s a flaw in the manager, not the midfielder.
Homegrown is where the heart is The past couple of years have shown more clearly than ever that football is business with a side of entertainment, and the days of academy-as-talent pool are being eclipsed by academy-as-free-money.
In all honesty, fans shouldn’t have a clue what PSR is, and pure profit shouldn’t be in the football lexicon.
But the uncomfortable truth is that these things do matter and are discussed in the same breath as how 22-year-old men are of course worth £100m. Sensible conversations in sensible times.
If anyone seems to revel in discomfort it’s INEOS, United’s iniquitous co-owners of ‘slash the canteen budget’ and ‘no more free tickets’ fame, and when news broke that they had put Mainoo, along with fellow Carrington graduate Alejandro Garnacho, up for sale it was initially met with a blank stare.
It was like being told that toddlers had to pay tax or all cats had to be kicked daily, so laughably wrong that it didn’t seem worth taking seriously.
But as the story gained traction and Chelsea hove into view, the reality set in – that one of the last players who should be sold could well be the first, and for what?
No matter how many millions in ‘pure profit’ United could recoup, with Mainoo would be sold the last vestiges of everything that the club, that football, stands for.
It’s hard to take his reported salary dispute seriously, and while the wage structure at the club is rotten to the core Mainoo doesn’t feel like a good place to start pinching pennies.
The 20-year-old could go down as one of United’s greats, or he could go down in flames, but the point is he should do it at Old Trafford. The lad who got the Stretford End believing again and has the raw materials to reach a higher level than almost any of his team-mates should be allowed to grow at the club which raised him.
The case of Garnacho is different – he has made his feelings towards the club perfectly clear, and should Mainoo do the same, or should his talent fizzle out, then a sale makes sense and that would be that.
But until that day, the youngster who seems to love the club and its fans should be clutched like a talisman around whom in time the team is formed, not pawned for the sake of balancing the books and bringing in an unproven lad from Serie A.
Thankfully the signs are now looking good for Mainoo, who was featured prominently in the launch of United’s new home kit for next season, with a new deal on the horizon and renewed belief on the United bench that the player can regain his form.
What Amorim and INEOS do with Mainoo will be their legacy and regardless of everything else that’s happened, on this matter they must be on the right side of history.
Featured image Vasili Mihai-Antonio via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
