Keep the next Nani or make £55m? Why Manchester United must sell Alejandro Garnacho
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It’s a story which would have seemed unlikely – perhaps even unthinkable – just a few months ago, but all signs point to the fact that Manchester United are giving serious consideration to selling Alejandro Garnacho, a talented young player who was expected to play a key role in United’s future at the start of the season. This is a young man who was meant to be among the crown jewels of the next generation. Now he could be a Chelsea player by the start of February.
Both Chelsea and Napoli appear to be interested, with the Serie A league leaders supposedly making two bids already, although they have yet to meet United’s valuation, which was reported earlier this week as having dropped from £65m to £55m. Reports from numerous outlets suggest that a bid from Chelsea could be on the table before too long. The prospect of a departure is not so distant.
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Hide AdBy any sensible standards, it’s a lot of money for a 20-year-old, but supporters seldom like to see their most promising youngsters sold off and it’s certainly not the way the club operated in happier times – but according to Ruben Amorim, this may be the worst squad “in the history of Manchester United” and part-owners Ineos are keen to engineer a substantial rebuild. Selling a home-grown player for a large sum would facilitate that – and the pace of Garnacho’s progress as a player suggests that it may not be such a terrible idea.
Wayward shooting highlights shortcomings
When the Argentine international, who has been with United since signing from Atlético Madrid as a teenager in 2020, first broke through, his potential seemed apparent. Fearless, direct and willing to shoot or dribble from any angle available, he offered tantalising hints of the early years of his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo, even if his technique and élan were not quite so extraordinary. There were fewer flicks and tricks, but the same bravado was there in spades.
But 18 months after forcing his way into the first team in earnest, his achievements remain comparatively modest. He managed a very respectable seven goals and four assists in his first full season as a starter – not necessarily as much as United would want from a starting member of the front three, but by no means bad for a 19-year-old – but there were obvious issues, especially with his decision-making.
Garnacho was a player who shot when he should have passed, and vice versa. He took on his man when an easy ball was on. He went left when he should have gone right. It would be absurd to expect a youngster taking his first steps at the elite level not to exhibit a certain amount of youthful naïveté, but the worry is that he still hasn’t learned how to read a game, nor to understand how to play to the needs of the team rather than compiling a highlight reel.
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Hide AdThat could very well be said of Ronaldo at the same age, too, and often was, but the blunt fact is that Garnacho isn’t at the same level that Ronaldo was was when he first came through at Old Trafford – and the bigger problem is that Garnacho doesn’t seem to be improving at a particularly impressive rate.
There is no statistical metric by which Garnacho can be said to be better than the average Premier League winger right now. By most fundamental attacking metrics he is in the middle of the pack. There are some data points where he shines – his crossing is extremely good, which is important – but Garnacho is, right now, not a player who is playing at the level of a team who want to be competing for the top four, and probably should.
His shooting is perhaps the biggest issue. Seven goals was a healthy return for a first full season, but those goals came from 8.4xG, and those expected goals came from a massive 100 shots on goal. On average, he attempts over three shots per Premier League game but each shot is worth roughly 0.1xG. Those are not elite numbers.
To put that in context, Liverpool’s Luis Díaz, the player who operates in the same position for the current league leaders, scored eight goals from 11.9xG last season (not great either) but generated those chances from 94 shots. The numbers are even starker this time around – Garnacho has had four more shots on goal than the Colombian but they have been worth five fewer goals and 1.3 fewer expected goals. Put next to a good player on a good team, Garnacho’s output looks indifferent. Right now, he is a decent player on a sub-par side, but not the kind of player who looks liable to drag his team towards top four contention in the immediate future.
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Hide AdSlow progress should be a worry
Of course, comparing a player in their theoretical prime with a relative neophyte is inherently unfair. Garnacho’s value isn’t just determined by his current output but by the player he could potentially become.
Establishing how far a player can really go is more or less impossible, and certainly can’t be done with stats alone, but raw data can help to measure the progress a player is making – and the fact is that while Garnacho has improved from his first full season as a starter to his second, the leaps he has made have mostly been small.
Based on the Wyscout data, his goal and assist output per 90 minutes is practically identical from one season to the next. His passing is 4.2% more accurate, which is something, but not much. He gets more shots on target now, at least, but the outcome in terms of expected and actual goals is the same. The only substantial leap forward has been with his crossing, where he has jumped from 20.8% accuracy to 37.2%, which is undeniably impressive. The league average generally hovers around 22%.
He dribbles more often than all but 14 players in the entire division right now, but while his success rate (57.6%) is thoroughly respectable, it’s actually slightly lower than it was last season. Outside of his capacity to aim a cross, Garnacho simply hasn’t improved much over the course of 18 months of regular action.
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Hide AdThat, as much as anything, should be a concern. Getting the full slate of stats for Ronaldo at the same age is impossible – a lot of the metrics in common usage today weren’t measured back in the 2000s – but the numbers we do have show a significant and consistent improvement at a similar age, and he scored almost twice as often after turning 20.
Based on the information we do have, a better comparison might be Nani, whose own statistical improvement was largely negligible between the ages of 19 and 23. Nani was by no means a bad player, although he could be a deeply inconsistent and frustrating one. He enjoyed two truly first-rate seasons with United, 2010/11 and 2011/12, when he was worth 41 league goal contributions over two years – but it was only those two seasons in a nearly 20-year career (which is still going in Portugal) that he truly shone.
Like Garnacho, Nani was guilty of making frustratingly poor decisions in crucial areas. Like Garnacho, he lacked that extra cutting edge in front of goal that marks out truly elite wide forwards, although in the age of Sir Alex Ferguson and 4-4-2, Nani’s role and priorities were different. But the question is begged – would you rather have Nani at the start of his career, probably a few years away from being a really first-rate forward if he does get there, or would you rather have £55m to sign a player who can make an immediate and perhaps more consistent impact?
Of course, Garnacho is not Nani. He is his own man with his own path ahead of him, and may well defy the early statistical omens to enjoy an exceptional career. There is a chance that if United do sell him – to a rival, no less – then they might regret it deeply. But right now, the odds are that if sacrifices must be made, the Argentine would make a reasonable offering to the gods of profit and sustainability. He’d free up more cash than firing a few tea ladies, at any rate.
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