Former Manchester United wonderkid Angel Gomes made a decision to quit the club in summer 2020. He is now an England star.
When Angel Gomes earned his England call-up earlier this month, it made his decision to leave Manchester United worth it.
Gomes took a gamble when he left Old Trafford. He has been able to establish himself, find his best position, and become the star everybody believed he would be.
On his first England start, Angel Gomes was terrific, proving his quality, and impressing supporters.
Nicky Butt saw Angel Gomes vision
Angel Gomes was handed his debut under Jose Mourinho in 2017 when he became one of Manchester United’s youngest ever players.
Gomes made a total of 10 appearances for United, the other nine coming under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, totalling 320 minutes of action.
Despite Solskjaer’s tentative interest in Gomes, he never really committed to giving the youngster a chance.
After throwing him on as a substitute in a disastrous Carabao Cup semi-final when United were already 3-0 down, Gomes was not selected again, and not even included in the squad later that same month when United took on Tranmere and won 6-0 in the FA Cup.
Solskjaer saw Gomes as more of an attacking midfielder, and he had the qualities, but former Manchester United head of academy Nicky Butt had other ideas.
Butt used Gomes as deep lying playmaker in a UEFA Youth League game against Juventus, with United winning 4-1.
He explained via United media: “Angel has got the ability to play pretty much anywhere. He’s a footballer so everyone automatically thinks he’s an attacker but we like him in the pivot role to set up play and get the ball moving.”
Six years on, Angel Gomes agrees, and so does England boss Lee Carsley. In the win over Finland, Gomes had a staggering 130 touches, dictating the play, and filling in for Kobbie Mainoo with ease.
So how did Manchester United go on to blow this, when Butt saw the vision for Gomes?
Manchester United not in sync
The answer to why Angel Gomes left Manchester United is both complex and simple at the same time.
It boils down to the club’s academy and first team not necessarily being in-sync. After Jose Mourinho left, there was a lot of work to do, to connect the two.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made some positive steps, but Gomes fell between the cracks..
One of the first things new manager Erik ten Hag did when he came in, was to improve the working relationship between the first team and the academy.
Ten Hag has a say in which players are brought into first team training, the team’s approach, and attempts to ensure that the transition to step up was a smooth one.
By this time, Nicky Butt had left, in 2021, a year after Gomes, and expressed his frustration, commenting: “My vision and my philosophy and what I was brought up on at Man United didn’t go with the people running the club so it was time to leave.”
There was no space for Gomes to break through in central midfield under Solskjaer, but even in the attacking midfield role, the youngster was largely overlooked.
Erik ten Hag has demonstrated that when there is a potentially elite talent like Kobbie Mainoo coming through, he will create opportunities for them.
United have an opportunity to bring Gomes back next summer, with his deal at Lille set to expire in 2025.
This could ‘right the wrong’ of his departure, but it did not need to be this way.
If Nicky Butt’s vision as head of academy had been listened to, Angel Gomes might have stuck around at United all along.
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