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Alejandro Garnacho left Manchester United for Chelsea at the end of August under a cloud. The quintessential Gen Z footballer, who appears to divide his time evenly between having his head up on the pitch and his head down in his phone off it, had made one faux pas too many on social media.
The 21-year-old’s attitude had been slated: he was petulant, self-absorbed; he played for himself and not the team, failing to follow tactical instructions. It was certainly the view of Ruben Amorim, who did not take long after his arrival at United last November to feel the hackles rise when it came to Garnacho.
The head coach’s view would only harden. He wanted Garnacho out, casting him into his bomb squad at the beginning of the summer. It was a move endorsed by the hierarchy. So when Garnacho returns to Old Trafford with Chelsea on Saturday – the haste dramatic, indecent – it is likely there will be a negative reaction.
It is because, first and foremost, the match-going United fans back their manager. Even one who is averaging a point a game in the Premier League. Especially one who is averaging a point per game in the Premier League. The boos for Garnacho would be a representation of their support for the club. And yet it is some distance from being that simple.
The reason is that there is a constituency of United fans who retain a good deal of affection and appreciation for Garnacho, who has been central to some of the club’s better moments in recent times after his first-team break-through in 2022-23 under Erik ten Hag.
They loved singing “Viva Garnacho” to the same tune as their old serenade for Cristiano Ronaldo – Garnacho’s idol. They were energised when he tore in from the left; quick, skilful, direct, capable of the spectacular. To them, he is what a classic United winger should be. And if he was a bit cocky with it, then good. Garnacho aspired to wear the club’s No 7 shirt, the previous property of Ronaldo among other icons. Brashness is a part of the package.
It is possible to see Garnacho’s return as a kind of referendum on Amorim, who was allowed by the higher-ups to sell an academy-polished jewel because of the faith they have in him and his methods. Do the United hardcore hate Garnacho? Absolutely not. Any boos for him would be of the pantomime variety. It is not exactly Fernando Torres returning with Chelsea to face Liverpool.
Where it could get interesting – or uncomfortable – for Amorim – would be if Chelsea won well and Garnacho was brilliant. The United fanbase are worried about Amorim; they are questioning him despite the outward support. It would be easy to imagine some using Garnacho as a stick with which to beat him if the player thrived at Chelsea.
There had to be a few pangs at United when they watched Garnacho’s unveiling video at Stamford Bridge, which ended with him perched on a pitch-side hoarding. It was one of the goal celebrations he performed at United, copied of course from Ronaldo – like so many of the rest. Garnacho did the siuuu, the calma, the pointing down at the pitch, the sleeping celebration, the chest-out-and hands-on-hips.
But when he popped himself on to the Old Trafford hoarding after scoring the first of his two goals against West Ham in February 2024 and was joined by Kobbie Mainoo and Rasmus Højlund, it was an image that endured, hinting at youthful possibility. Mainoo is now out of the starting XI and Højlund has gone to Napoli.
How have we got here with Garnacho? There were flashpoints under Ten Hag, starting with when Garnacho was disciplined on the summer tour of Thailand and Australia in 2022 after he turned up late to a pair of team meetings. Ten Hag did not play him in any of the matches there. Garnacho would react badly to being substituted at half-time at Bournemouth in April 2024, posting a shocked emoji on his Instagram story and liking tweets that criticised Ten Hag’s decision. In September of that year, Garnacho liked a post that detailed criticism of Ten Hag by Ronaldo.
Yet Ten Hag liked Garnacho. He would admonish him, rather like an exasperated parent, but he played him, trusted him and was rewarded, Garnacho becoming a mainstay, providing plenty of good memories. The best was surely the overhead kick at Everton in November 2023, which would win the Puskas award. Or perhaps it was his goal and role in the FA Cup final triumph against Manchester City in 2024.
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Amorim was less tolerant and the first crack in his relationship with Garnacho was evident after the Europa League tie at Viktoria Plzen last December. He introduced him as an 81st-minute substitute but as he imparted some last-second advice, he perceived that Garnacho had turned away; he was not listening. Amorim would drop him from the squad for the next game, which was the derby at City, and, thereafter, there was rarely a positive feeling.
Garnacho walked straight down the tunnel after his 45th-minute substitution against Ipswich in February of this year, which followed the red card for Patrick Dorgu and an Amorim tactical reshuffle. Garnacho apologised to the squad, according to Amorim, and paid for a dinner out with them. But everything was completely broken when Amorim used him only as a 71st-minute substitute in the Europa League final against Tottenham in May.
Garnacho knew what he was doing when he complained to Spanish broadcasters in the mixed zone after, saying that “the final will influence [what he did next] but it’s the whole season, the situation of the club”. His brother, Roberto, would pile in on Instagram, saying Garnacho had been “thrown under the bus” by Amorim. In late June, when Garnacho uploaded a picture of himself in the shirt worn by his fellow United outcast Marcus Rashford on loan at Aston Villa, it was nothing more than a parting shot.
Where Garnacho had starred in Ten Hag’s 4-3-3 system, which prioritised pure wingers, he found himself squeezed out in Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 – a square peg in a round hole at No 10 or wing-back. Garnacho has to take the responsibility for his behaviour, the inability to deal with frustration that has led some to label him an egomaniac.
Yet an alternative view persists about the fiercely ambitious kid who, at 16, went from Atlético Madrid to United, moving into digs in a new country, with little of the language and at a time when the world was in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. He is just a kid, who sometimes makes bad judgments. If Garnacho is unable to look up from his phone to say hello, then maybe it is a generational thing. Could he be misunderstood?
United have received £40m from Chelsea, making Garnacho their fourth-highest sale behind Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku and Ángel Di María in that order. It was below the market rate for a player who finished last season with 21 goals and assists. Blame the bomb-squad status.
It is strange to remember that Garnacho’s United debut in April 2022 under Ralf Rangnick was as a substitute at Old Trafford against Chelsea. So much has changed. His desire to prove a point has not.
