Chelsea are expected to push for the signing of Alejandro Garnacho in the final days of the transfer window. Will the money prove too tempting for Manchester United to turn down?
Rewind just a few months to the start of the 2024-25 Premier League season, and the thought of Alejandro Garnacho ending the campaign anywhere but Manchester United would’ve been almost unthinkable to the majority of the club’s supporters.
In United’s otherwise mostly drab 2023-24 season, Garnacho played a vital role as United lifted the FA Cup, scoring their opener against Manchester City in that memorable 2-1 final victory.
The Argentina international, along with Kobbie Mainoo, the other goalscorer that day, and Rasmus Højlund seemed to be anointed last term as the future of the club. Their joint celebration during the win over West Ham a few months earlier, as they sat on an advertising hoarding with arms around each other, was instantly verging on iconic.
The trio were snapped together incessantly with the FA Cup trophy after their Wembley success and the picture was recreated in a promotional video for the club’s 2024-25 home kit.
While those images may not have meant anything tangible in reality, people are programmed to look for significance and signs in almost everything. For many United fans, the idea of a specific version of the future was being projected in front of their eyes, perhaps fuelled subconsciously by the similarity to the ‘Holy Trinity’ statue depicting George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton and Denis Law outside Old Trafford’s east stand.
But, as the January transfer window (which, somewhat confusingly, actually closes on 3 February) enters its final days, so too could Garnacho’s Man Utd career if Chelsea have their way.
In the simplest terms, the ‘why’ of it all is actually quite straightforward and literally comes down to money.
The winter window began with United appearing to brief the media that they were willing to listen to offers for Garnacho, Mainoo and Hojlund. They weren’t actively trying to sell them, but no longer could they dismiss interest out of hand because of their worsening financial position, which would be eased significantly by selling any of them, especially Garnacho or Mainoo.
Essentially, United’s misguided over-spending in the past few years has caught up with them, meaning they need to sell before embarking on another rebuild or they’ll fall foul of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). With Garnacho and Mainoo classed as academy products for whom United aren’t still paying out transfer fee instalments, in accounting terms selling them would bring in “pure profit”.
This would just be the latest example in the emerging trend of clubs selling academy products because they are that bit more valuable to the accountants.
But of course, appeasing the accounts department isn’t the only reason why cashing in on Garnacho might be tempting. While most would agree that he is one of United’s most promising players, there are considerable doubts regarding his suitability to the new system established by Ruben Amorim.
Erik ten Hag’s successor has been unequivocal from day one in that United will play his way – variations of a 3-4-3 formation – while he’s at the club. The message to players is: adapt or leave.
Amorim has been damning about the efforts to adapt by another United forward, Marcus Rashford, saying at the weekend that he’d rather put his 63-year-old goalkeeper coach on the bench than the England forward if he’s not giving his all in training. He has been much more complimentary of Garnacho but has still frequently highlighted how the player and system are mismatched.
Below, you can see the most common in-possession shapes of Amorim’s Sporting CP side from earlier this season to get an idea of how he’d ideally get this United team to look.
Obviously, football matches are fluid events and things change depending on lots of variables, so the following graphics show specific examples of the players’ average positions in two of Sporting’s tougher Primeira Liga fixtures this term prior to Amorim leaving.
In both, the width is provided by the wing-backs rather than wingers, while Viktor Gyökeres is supported more closely by two number 10s. Although they do have freedom to go out wide, their average positions suggest they spend more time within the width of the penalty area than hugging the touchline.
Garnacho has been exclusively used as one of those number 10s since Amorim was appointed, and his average positions on the pitch have been more central than before – but he still isn’t impacting the game enough in the middle for his coach’s liking.
Speaking earlier this month, Amorim said: “That is clear, [Garnacho] has talent. [But] he needs to learn to play a little bit in a different position. He needs to play better inside.
“He improved a lot in the recovering position, when he doesn’t have the ball, but, doing that, sometimes he’s not in the right place to make transitions, like he was in the past, because I prefer to defend and then build up with all the team to make the final third.”
The two maps below show where Pote and Francisco Trincão – Amorim’s first-choice number 10s for most of his final year at Sporting – took up possession across 2023-24 and 2024-25 until the change of manager. While they often saw the ball out wide like Garnacho, note the proportion of touches in central areas.
Now, looking at Garnacho’s touch zones in all competitions (to provide a greater sample size) since Amorim was hired, the difference to the aforementioned Sporting players is striking.
It obviously wouldn’t be fair on Garnacho to expect him to transform his playing habits straight away, of course. However, it shows how much work he and Amorim have ahead of them to mould Garnacho into a player who fits the system well.
It’s not a situation completely without hope, though.
“He’s finding the best way to play in this system. He’s improving during training, and I think he changed the way he sees himself,” Amorim said a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that not only does he feel like he’s making progress with the player, but that Garnacho’s attitude is positive as well.
Clearly, the latter point can’t be too far from the truth because we know from Rashford’s situation – in that he hasn’t played since 12 December – that players won’t be involved if they aren’t pleasing the coaching staff. Garnacho has started four of United’s last five games in all competitions after being benched or dropped entirely for the prior seven.
There’s also the argument that young players are more malleable anyway, and that Amorim is likelier to succeed in transforming Garnacho, 20, than he is Rashford, 27, into a number 10.
But with that in mind, it was curious to see how Amorim used Garnacho in Sunday’s 1-0 win at Fulham.
“I am trying to find the best position for him; today he played a bit open, not so inside,” the coach said about essentially playing Garnacho as a conventional winger again.
To accommodate such a tweak, left wing-back Noussair Mazraoui inverted to be the one who’d come inside and occasionally occupy the spaces of a number 10.
But is that really any more of a realistic long-term strategy than getting Garnacho – or a replacement – to play centrally? Making conclusions on a single game might not be entirely fair, though it’s worth noting that United’s total of four shots at Craven Cottage was their lowest in a league game against non-big-six opposition since May 2016 (three vs West Ham). Furthermore, they’ve only managed a poorer expected goals return (0.25) twice in the Premier League on record (since 2010-11).
Whether it represented mixed messages to Garnacho, was a sign of Amorim accepting he isn’t a number 10, or a ploy to combat something specific in the Fulham team, it remains to be seen.
The other question begging to be asked is: should United be trying to convert Garnacho at all?
Former United captain Paul Scholes recently referred to Garnacho as technically “scruffy”, and it’s an understandable assessment when it comes to his ability in tight spaces. For instance, of 151 players to have attempted at least 50 dribbles in the Premier League since the start of last season, Garnacho ranks 125th for dribble success rate (38.8%).
Rather than being intricate, he excels when he has space to run into in the final third, hence why his 100 carries ending with a shot or chance created is second only to Cole Palmer (101) since the start of last season despite spending a reasonable chunk of 2024-25 on the bench.
“Anything can happen. He is improving in every part of the game: the understanding, when to defend,” Amorim said at the weekend in another hint that there is some kind of future for him at United.
But the conundrum for United comes down to whether the potential payoff of Garnacho successfully adapting to Amorim’s system is more valuable than the “pure profit” that he – quite clearly a square peg in a round hole currently – would bring in to potentially allow the club to sign players more equipped for their setup.
From the outside, though, United’s track record in the transfer market in recent years has been appalling and is what got them into this mess in the first place. There’s no guarantee any players they sign will perform better even if they are more used to the formation.
It’ll likely prevent United spending any money on a first-team-ready wing-back and therefore hurt them in the short term. But it might be that trusting Amorim to do his job and develop a talented young player is the better choice in the long run.
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