There is perhaps no better tonic to suggestions that Manchester United no longer have the status in world football to retain their most talented young footballers than a talented young footballer scoring less than eight minutes into their full Red Devils debut.
Shea Lacey kissing the badge in celebration was pointed, just as his social media post on Tuesday of him walking into Old Trafford with a heart emoji was. Are you watching, JJ Gabriel?
The irony of the 15-year-old ‘asking to quit’ Man Utd by ‘sending formal notice of intention to cancel his registration with immediate effect’ is that he was set to be playing in this game. He might have been the one scoring.
Instead he, or more likely his entourage, will be fielding calls from the representatives of the great and good of European football blowing smoke up his proverbial in a bid to land ‘Kid Messi’.
An exciting time, no doubt. Which teenager wouldn’t get a buzz through a DM from the assistant to the assistant sporting director at Real Madrid? As big a dopamine hit as scoring a first senior goal under the lights at Old Trafford? We think not. What a silly boy.
He and his family, it’s not quite clear whom the frustration stems from, want out of United on the basis of ‘mixed messages’. Having worked hard to keep him from Manchester City the club has since ‘treated him with kid gloves’ and not delivered on promotions that his camp assumed would arrive sooner. Michael Carrick failing to use him in the Champions League against Sabah is thought to have been the ‘final straw’.
READ: Manchester United deserve credit, not criticism, for ‘kid gloves’ handling of JJ Gabriel
He’s evidently a child (yes, a child) with extraordinary confidence in his own ability, and fair enough. He’s likely been told he’s the dogs b*llocks throughout his life and won’t have missed Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs comparing him to Wayne Rooney.
We would challenge anyone to stay grounded when exalted to such a high degree at such an early age, particularly – as appears to be the case with Gabriel – if you don’t have the right people around you.
We don’t know him or those people. But someone being advised well surely wouldn’t have jumped the gun as they have here.
Gabriel can’t leave United for another Premier League club until the end of the season. Even a loophole which may allow him to leave on his 16th birthday for a European club thanks to an Irish passport can’t be taken advantage of until October 6.
Maybe Gabriel wasn’t bothered as Lacey cut inside from the right flank and fired a shot inside Luke Steele’s near post to give United the lead at Old Trafford on Wednesday; maybe he was focused on his social media mentions and dreaming of his future elsewhere.
But we hope, in what would be a positive sign of the young man’s character, that he was watching his academy pal and reflecting on what could have been. Because tweets from Fabrizio Romano, reported interest from Barcelona and reposts from Alejandro Garnacho is all just noise.
What Shea Lacey did in the eighth minute of his full debut under lights at Old Trafford is football; football that Gabriel could and probably would have been playing had he not prematurely pushed for an exit from one of the biggest clubs in the world that was just trying to do right by a kid, who isn’t actually Lionel Messi, won’t ever be, and is 15 months younger than the greatest football in history was when making his official debut for Barcelona.