The moment may have been lost on Kobbie Mainoo on Sunday, but three minutes into the second half of Manchester United’s meeting against Fulham, with his team leading 1-0 and on the way to a third consecutive victory, the midfielder passed a significant personal milestone.
That was the point at which the 20-year-old logged 228 minutes of Premier League football under United’s interim manager Michael Carrick, the same number he had appeared in over 12 previous league appearances this season under Ruben Amorim and, briefly, caretaker Darren Fletcher.
In a long list of winners and losers emerging from yet another turbulent moment in United’s post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, Mainoo looks on course to be, by some measure, the biggest individual winner from Carrick’s arrival.
Thrust into his first league start in eight months in Carrick’s first game, the 2-0 Manchester derby victory, Mainoo has been on the field for every moment of the new reign since, before the Saturday lunchtime visit of Tottenham Hotspur to Old Trafford. On the way, he has also thrust himself into the conversation for a potential late run into Thomas Tuchel’s England World Cup squad.
More relevantly, for United’s increasingly long-suffering fan base, he may also emerge as that rarest of phenomena, an academy graduate who goes on not only to enjoy a successful career in the game, but spends the bulk of it at Old Trafford.
To underline the point, United’s prestigious Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year roll call through the years features a wide range of players, from disappointing failures to global superstars, and all points in between.
But, while few would question the talent, and relative success, enjoyed by the likes of Danny Welbeck, Mason Greenwood, Anthony Elanga and Alejandro Garnacho, all have — or will have — spent their peak years away from United. Marcus Rashford is also on that list but, having left United for Barcelona on loan at 27, his future at the club is uncertain.
Mainoo was frozen out by Amorim as the Portuguese believed he could not play in the same XI as Fernandes
DAVID KLEIN/REUTERS
Not since 1999, when the defender Wes Brown lifted the trophy for a second consecutive year, has a Jimmy Murphy winner gone on to enjoy a long career with the club; in his case one totalling 14 seasons, 360-plus games and 13 winners’ medals, including five league titles.
It may be fanciful to expect Mainoo, or any United player, to enjoy such a haul of silverware any time in the near future but, given the club’s emphasis on, and history of, youth development, Mainoo’s present importance to Carrick — and the eventual permanent manager — cannot be overstated.
Carrick is keenly aware that United lay claim to having named an academy graduate in their squad for every single game since October 1937, 88 years and counting. The interim manager spent many minutes on Thursday talking eloquently about the club’s history, one all the more relevant this week as United marked the 68th anniversary of the Munich air disaster with a poignant memorial service at Old Trafford on Friday.
One of the many criticisms levelled at Amorim was his failure to appreciate the depth of significance in that link between United’s academy and first team, one evidenced by his often calling out youngsters and their attitudes and behaviour. That is an error that Carrick is not going to repeat.
Carrick has shown a huge amount of faith in Mainoo
ASH DONELON/GETTY IMAGES
That faith shown by Carrick in the young midfielder has been repaid in spectacular fashion by Mainoo in those memorable wins over City, Arsenal and Fulham. In four key statistical categories over that spell — tackles, touches, successful passes and successful passes in the opposition half — Mainoo was bettered only by Bruno Fernandes.
Amorim believed that Fernandes and Mainoo could not be shoe-horned into the same line-up. The statistics suggest otherwise. So too, one assumes, would another United midfielder, the Brazilian veteran Casemiro, who this week named Fernandes and Mainoo as United’s two most competitive players in training.
Indeed, there are few inside Old Trafford, or the United world in general, who have a bad word to say about Mainoo. Only Amorim, it would appear, seemed unconvinced by his ability or potential. “You love Kobbie, he starts for England,” he said in December. “But that doesn’t mean that I need to put Kobbie [in] when I feel that I shouldn’t put Kobbie [in], so it’s my decision.”
Mainoo’s brother Jordan wore a T-shirt in December imploring Amorim to “free” him
The army of former United legends who now make their living as media talking heads are certainly in the Kobbie corner. One of them, Wayne Rooney, predicted in his column in The Times before the 2024 European Championship that Mainoo would start the tournament on the bench as Gareth Southgate explored other options, specifically Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher, but would eventually force his way into the starting line-up. That is precisely what happened, as Mainoo became the youngest Englishman to appear in a tournament semi-final and kept his starting place for the final defeat to Spain.
Two summers on Mainoo faces an uphill task to even force his way into Tuchel’s squad, although he has at least given himself a fighting chance, when that possibility appeared non-existent a few weeks ago. Longer term, he now appears ready to pledge his future to United, opening talks over a new deal that will replace the one that commits him to the club until 2027.
It is a far cry from last summer and before Christmas, when he was in discussions with the club about a lack of playing time and the need to leave on loan. For the foreseeable future, at least, that prospect has been removed.
Manchester United v Tottenham
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Saturday, 12.30pm
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