Given Donny van de Beek’s ineligibility at Everton, James Garner is flying the Manchester United flag in this season’s FA Cup.
The England Under-21 international will come up against United’s fierce rivals Liverpool tonight at the City Ground as Nottingham Forest try and pull off their third Premier League giant-killing.
Arsenal and Leicester City have already been ousted by Steve Cooper’s side and Garner will be desperate to dent Jurgen Klopp side’s quadruple bid.
With a spot in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley on the line, Garner is arguably going into the biggest game of his career.
United’s technical director Darren Fletcher has already stated that the 21-year-old will be a part of United’s first team pre-season, and he has a perfect opportunity tonight to strengthen his claim for first team inclusion, with an eye-catching performance.
Garner’s Forest teammate Jack Colback who played in the Premier League 178 times believes the Manchester United academy graduate is more than good enough to play in the top-flight.
Colback told the Manchester Evening News: “For me he’s got all the attributes needed.
“He’s very good on the ball, technically his passing range is excellent but he’s also got the other side of that, which is defensively I think he doesn’t get the credit, but he’s really good defensively, he covers a lot, gets a lot of tackles in and you need that.
“Like any player you’ve got to keep your head down, keep working, never think that you’ve done enough, but Jimmy will have as good a chance as anyone.”
Despite Cooper, who managed Garner at England Under-17 level, arriving at the club, Forest’s number 37 had to fight his way into the starting line-up.
The former Swansea City manager has been impressed with Garner’s consistency and he believes the season-long loan has benefited all parties.
“So far he’s been excellent, over recent months he’s been a high-performing player and a constant selection for us. The loan for him at the moment is proving to be a really beneficial one,” Cooper said.
“It’s important now that stays the case for the run-in, so he can get to the end of the season and be a better player from before he came, that’s always the objective of the loan and when that’s the case everyone benefits.
“We’re very happy with him, we’re working strongly with him, he’s working very hard, he’s very much embracing being at a big club, his parent club is a big club, we’re a big club, he’s embracing being a big part of that.
“We treat loan players like they’re our own, we think that’s really important and at the moment we’re getting some good returns so we’ve got to continue to improve even more with him.”
The clash against Liverpool will be Garner’s fourth against a Premier League team this season. As well as the wins against Leicester and Arsenal, Forest were battered 4-0 on home soil by Wolves back in August, when Chris Hughton was in charge.
Colback noticed Garner’s appetite and thirst to thrive in the big games came in the build-up to the clash against the Gunners.
“Jimmy can’t wait for it, he’s buzzing for it, I think it was before the Arsenal game that he couldn’t stop talking about, we had a league game before and I said ‘you need to focus on the league game’, but he was saying ‘we’ve got Arsenal’,” he said.
“Jimmy’s been great this season, he’s a confident lad, very talented and he can’t wait.
“We’ve not trained much with the amount of games we’ve played but he’ll be buzzing for it, I’m sure he’s got friends who support United and probably some who support Liverpool, he’s really looking forward to it and he’ll thrive on the challenge.
“Hopefully, for us he has a good game.”
With four assists to his name this season via corners, which is double United’s tally in the Premier League, Garner will be hoping to unnerve the likes of Virgil van Dijk with his set-piece deliveries.
Despite having the opportunity to play against Liverpool, Cooper believes James Garner won’t let the occasion get the best of him and will treat the cup clash like any other game.
“He wants to play well in every game he plays, that’s the type of character he is, he’s just been called up to England Under-21s again, it should never be underestimated how elite that squad is for young players,” he said.
“He’s treating every game with equal importance and so he should playing for this club.”
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