With one touch in the under-23 match in midweek, Angel Gomes showed why he is such a special talent.
Receiving the ball with his back to goal, Gomes turned and released James Garner with a sumptuous chip which split the Stoke defence.
It was an outrageous pass, one which Garner finished off with one touch to score his second of the match in a 3-2 win.
Gomes added to his impressive night with a close range finish to score his fourth goal in seven under-23 games this season.
Once again it highlighted that Gomes has outrageous ability and United must make an extra late push to keep him at Old Trafford.
His contract is running down and United cannot afford to give up on him. Most weeks he doesn’t even make the matchday 18.
Numbers do not add up
We can only wonder what Gomes may have achieved with the same game time provided to Andreas Pereira and Jesse Lingard this season.
Gomes has been a blind spot as far as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is concerned, and that needs to change.
Lingard has 1,624 minutes to his names this season for the first team, and Pereira has 2,170.
Meanwhile prodigious talent Gomes has just 291 minutes of action. It’s puzzling and can’t be doing the club’s cause any favours in terms of convincing the 19-year-old to pen a new deal.
Time for change
Both Lingard and Pereira have lost their place in the side lately. Since Bruno Fernandes has been signed, there have been matches where they have failed to make the 18. But they are still getting more opportunities than the youngster.
They have had their chances, combining for a total of one goal and three assists in Premier League matches (all from Pereira).
It is time to move both Pereira and Lingard aside and officially promote Gomes as a first team option behind Fernandes and a resurgent Juan Mata. It’s a fair argument that for the sake of the future he should jump ahead of the Spaniard too.
While he remains behind under performing Pereira and Lingard, he won’t get a chance. It’s time he gets a run as a first team player, or we will lose him.
A lot of damage to the cause may be done already, but it’s not too late to reverse this.
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