There was a scene at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin back in September that set WhatsApp chats between Manchester United academy coaches’ past and present ablaze. It was one of those ‘what if’ moments that suddenly looked all too real.
77 minutes had been played in England’s Nations League win against the Republic of Ireland when Kobbie Mainoo’s number came up. The 19-year-old from Stockport departed to be replaced by 24-year-old debutant Angel Gomes, born in London but reared in Salford.
Both of them learnt their trade in the United academy. Here were two talented footballers at the vanguard of England’s switch to a more controlling, technical midfield style, and they had been developed and crafted by the same staff at the same club. In amongst all the pride, there was just one sliver of disappointment or frustration. The fact this was happening in the white of the Three Lions, rather than the red of Manchester United.
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Mainoo looks to the manor born in United’s midfield, but Gomes didn’t get his breakthrough despite breaking records at the club. Instead, he plays his club football for Lille in France’s Ligue 1, whom he joined when he left Old Trafford for nothing in 2020.
Having seen his status rocket thanks to his England involvement under Lee Carsley, Gomes could return to the Premier League this summer, with his contract once again expiring. It would be sensible for United to consider the possibility of bringing him back, but they would face serious competition for a player now excelling at the highest level.
A return would certainly be poignant, and there’s no doubt Gomes could offer something to the United midfield. He has shown in his three international camps with England that he is a midfielder with excellent close control, elite skills, and the ability to open games up.
Dean Whitehouse worked with Gomes at the United academy in the under-11 and under-12 age groups, as well as Angel’s brother Rico.
“Angel and Rico, they are just little Mancs. His mum and dad obviously come from an international background, but these two are born and bred little Mancs, and they’re great characters,” Whitehouse told the Manchester Evening News.
“So you’re devastated [when Angel leaves]. As a coach who’s coached there for a long time, for me now, there would be nothing better than Kobbie and Angel, the Manchester United midfield for many years to come, I’d die a happy man. He could definitely have made it there.”
“To see Angel slapping hands with Kobbie, it’s utopia,” added Lee Unsworth, one of Gomes’ first coaches at United.
“You’re seeing two boys that you’ve been around and you’ve had some time with, and you’ve maybe helped along the way in some respect, coming and playing for England at the same time. It’s just fantastic.”
Gomes’ story at United is one of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In May 2017, at just 16 years and 263 days, he became the club’s youngest debutant since Duncan Edwards. That was the season he won the prestigious Jimmy Murphy young player of the year award, the youngest recipient of the award.
But Gomes has always been diminutive. Even now, he is only 5ft 6ins, and while that stature is now seen as irrelevant thanks to his ability on the ball and to manipulate space, it probably cost him when Jose Mourinho was in charge, and his development stalled.
“I think it’s just unfortunate, and by the way, Jose Mourinho’s been one of the greatest minds the football world’s ever seen, that’s undoubted, and it’s all about opinions, isn’t it,” said Whitehouse. “I don’t think he was the right fit potentially for Jose at that time.
“I don’t know Jose, but I know from speaking to Angel when he left that he was a bit gutted, like any player who leaves his home club. I don’t think he wanted to leave. I think he felt it was best at that time.”
Size was always likely to be the one concern first-team coaches would have about Gomes. The coaches who worked with him at the academy were blown away by his ability from a young age, but also his intelligence and tactical understanding of the game, which almost made his physical attributes irrelevant.
“He was an extremely skilful kid, like off the charts really how good he was,” said Unsworth. “Finding space, manipulating the ball, and understanding things really that perhaps a youngster at that age doesn’t have generally, but he had that from a very early age.
“I would say, quite unusual the way he would be able to understand space, find space and then be able to manipulate the ball through the spaces that he needed to do, really.”
In the youngest age groups Gomes started out as a striker before dropping back down the pitch to be a No. 6 or a No. 8 in midfield, a position he excels in now.
Whitehouse recalls an injury that kept him out for five or six weeks when he was 11 or 12 and a “lightbulb” moment that crystallised how much he loved the game and wanted to make it. At one parents’ evening, his mum told club staff he had become a “student of the game” during his period.
“He has got such amazing awareness of where to be, and I think he’s got such bravery to get on the ball that he’ll take it any time, any place,” said Whitehouse.
“He was always smaller but one of the things we always said at United is it doesn’t matter if they’re small, as long as they’re quick and they’re skilful. And he was quick, and he was skilful, and he was just amazing.”
Whitehouse remembers a couple of games against Manchester City in an older age group where he shone, and people “started raving about him. You knew then he had a special talent.”
Both Unsworth and Whitehouse describe training sessions as being fun for Gomes. They play down their abilities to teach a player of such natural talent anything. Unsworth helped to implement a ball-striking program that taught youngsters how to strike a ball in certain situations “but in a really fun manner.”
Whitehouse describes his role as a “facilitator.” They made sure games and sessions were about skill in high-pressure situations so that dealing with that on the pitch became second nature. That’s exactly what happened in the quarter-final of the Mediterranean International Cup when the under-12s faced Dnipro.
“All their staff have got mullets, and they are all screaming at the kids and abusing the kids,” remembers Whitehouse. “We get a free-kick in the last minute and Angel scores this unbelievable free-kick.
So we erupt. Everybody’s going crazy. The Ukrainians are screaming and going mad at the ref. We win the game, and we’ve got a semi-final against Barcelona to look forward to in the next game.
“But I always remember Brandon Williams crying his eyes out. I’d run on the pitch thinking one of these coaches had said something or done something to Brandon. I ask him what the matter is and he starts saying, ‘I’m just so happy, I’m so happy’. He and Angel were really close fiends. It was great to see.”
Unsworth said of his relationship with his teammates: “A little bit shy, but really nice kid, really good kid, good family, good background, you know, very supportive.
“It was just a pleasure really to be around him because he loved football and so the environment we were in, it’s all about football so that was his love really and so when he was Manchester United at the time he was just thriving because he was doing everything that he wanted to do.”
Having excelled away from the spotlight in France, the international breaks in September, October, and this month have shown a domestic audience what those at United knew all along.
He will likely win a fifth cap against Republic of Ireland at Wembley today. Then he will look to keep his place in Thomas Tuchel’s first squad in March and, perhaps, a return to the Premier League next summer. Maybe the ‘little Manc’ could end up coming home.
