Manchester United have ensured that the former players playing elsewhere keep dominating the agenda for a while to come with recent developments.
Anthony Elanga tore through Man Utd and scored the winner for Forest in United’s 0-1 loss, while Marcus Rashford shines at Aston Villa and Antony is flying in Spain with Real Betis.
At least, the sample size for the latter two is fairly small so the jury is still out, regardless of what the narrative would have the Man Utd fans believe.
But what about a player who’s been called a “dream” by his own current teammate and was sold by United for peanuts?
Photo by Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images
Photo by Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images
Man Utd sold a ‘dream for a midfielder’
It is impossible to look at Man Utd now and not think that some of the players sold by the club could easily walk into the first XI of the current team.
Ruben Amorim recently had enough of this line of questioning, however, claiming that if the players did well for United, the club wouldn’t have sold them in the first place.
While it’s true that the pressure that comes with playing at Old Trafford is unique so the form isn’t directly transferable, the narrative doesn’t help.
Their former player’s current teammate has just reinforced that narrative by calling the ex-United man a “dream for a midfielder”.
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The player in question is Ryan Yates, who waxed lyrical over the impact of his teammate Anthony Elanga in the wake of his match-winning goal against United.
He said: “He is a dream for a midfielder. Especially us sitting in that low block – you can give him the ball and he does the rest.”
Anthony Elanga flourishing in system Ruben Amorim is moving away from
Imagining how Elanga would look in the current United setup is tempting, and it is a reasonable argument that he could have been a good wing-back.
However, the Swede is now playing a central role for Forest in a system that Amorim has repeatedly said he wants to move away from.
The Man Utd manager has stressed that this squad is too comfortable playing on counter-attack and doesn’t have enough poise and confidence to dominate games.
A transitional team is exactly the setup in which Elanga thrives, able to pick off defences when he has acres of space to run into but struggles to beat his man off the dribble.
Therefore, this is a case of a player finding the right environment for his game that he wouldn’t have at Old Trafford. Nobody is to blame.