The dark clouds are hovering over Manchester United and Ruben Amorim’s team is in genuine danger of getting dragged into a relegation battle as it stands.
In times like these, superstars can be born who step up and take the game by the scruff of its neck, separating themselves from the “good”.
Ruben Amorim is in desperate need of someone like that to emerge because the collective system is just not clicking at the moment.
Fortunately, in one player who’s become a recent favourite of his, the Man Utd manager has just the person who had his finest moment at the place his team is about to run it back.
Ruben Amorim trusts Alejandro Garnacho now
It was just in December that the teamsheet for the Manchester derby dropped and both Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford were absent.
The win in that game seemed like a watershed moment that the team was firmly bigger than every individual and they would need to change their ways.
Since then, one of those two has already left the club in a state of silently scorched earth, with Marcus Rashford finding himself at Aston Villa.
The other, Garnacho, has worked his way back into the team and after being given a baptism of fire by Ruben Amorim, has emerged with credit to his name.
The turnaround is such that Garnacho is again one of the first names on the teamsheet at Old Trafford.
Even though his performances have left a lot to be desired, especially in finishing his chances, he’s one of the few players who finds himself at the end of those chances at all, a luxury for the rest of his teammates right now.
What better way to get that finishing monkey off his back than at the ground where he finished the most audacious chance in all of world football last season?
The incredible bicycle on November 26, 2023, from Garnacho, won him the Puskas award for the season and really set him up as a player destined for stardom.
The system is different now and so is his position but that moment of magic he has in him all along needs to come out again as United struggle.
Garnacho’s heroics needed again vs Everton
Fixtures at Goodison Park have always troubled Man Utd and this one is about to be even tougher because Everton are about to move out of it.
Liverpool recently bore the brunt of that feeling as Everton created a raucous atmosphere at the ground they’re determined to leave on a high.
For Amorim’s already fragile team mentally, there arguably isn’t a worse fixture to prepare for than Everton at Goodison Park right now.
That makes Garnacho all the more important because he’s been a player of moments, capable of pulling something out of the hat that will be needed in a game of attrition and physicality.
Confidence is a big thing in football and the Argentine will be full of it on his return to the stadium that gave him the finest moment of his professional career so far.
Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox
