England were a lot of things at Euro 2024 but spectacular wasn\u2019t one of them. Reaching the final and getting within five minutes of winning the trophy speaks for itself and the Three Lions, gradually, found their way after a dull start. They were never exciting. They just found their way.<\/p>\n
Manchester United<\/strong><\/a> midfielder Kobbie Mainoo was a big part of that small improvement. He barely played in a group stage that was worryingly tame but started all four matches of a more controlled, more effective knock-out phase.<\/p>\n Mainoo turned 20 in April. He\u2019s proven his worth in an England<\/strong><\/a> shirt. He\u2019s a Stockport-born United academy graduate with 50 Premier League appearances under his belt. That his future isn\u2019t completely certain this summer is an indictment not only of the club, but of football\u2019s financial governance.<\/p>\n Specifically, it highlights the flaws in football\u2019s financial governance frameworks. In the Premier League, profit and sustainability rules (PSR) allow clubs to make a \u00a3105m loss in any given three-year period<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Because teams are on an endless quest for improvement on the pitch, players need to be bought and sold. In the PSR era, those sales are increasingly coming from the \u2018Do Not Sell\u2019 pile.<\/p>\n Profit from sales is booked immediately and transfer fees are amortised over the lengths of the players\u2019 contracts. Clubs sell players with value to pay down their losses and replace them with expensive successors, whose futures will be subject to the same calculations down the line.<\/p>\n United themselves are pertinent to the PSR debate \u2013 if debts aren\u2019t part of the calculation and clubs have to sell players against their wishes on June 30 only to buy someone more expensive on July 1 to comply with allowable losses, is it really doing its job? \u2013 but the basic fact of the matter is this: Manchester United shouldn\u2019t be considering the sale of Mainoo in a million months of Super Sundays.<\/p>\n And yet they might. It\u2019s the same with Alejandro Garnacho, albeit the winger\u2019s departure would be welcomed more positively given his penchant for bridge-burning<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Mainoo and Garnacho did not command transfer fees on the way in but would on the way out, and that helps United equip Ruben Amorim with Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.<\/p>\n MORE MANCHESTER UNITED COVERAGE ON F365<\/strong> Mainoo has been forced out of the spotlight through a lot of injury and a little under-use since shining in the latter stages of the European Championship. He started exactly half of United\u2019s Premier League matches in 2024\/25, five fewer than the previous season which he began injured.<\/p>\n He might even have been slightly forgotten by the most casual football supporters beyond the ranks of Red Devils but he\u2019s still an exciting prospect who will be looking ahead to 2025\/26 with hopes of getting his fitness back on track.<\/p>\n There have been reports that Mainoo\u2019s wage demands could be a factor in his club\u2019s calculation. His contract expires in two years; a decision would be made soon at a smart club and might be made soon at United too.<\/p>\n His coaches speak of maturity, physical strength and imagination on the ball. Even at 20, his one-on-one skills are beyond doubt, proven at the highest level. Mainoo has the mentality and ability to be a part of what United need to become.<\/p>\n They\u2019ll win nothing without kids<\/p>\n Manchester United have been a dominant commercial force in football for decades. They\u2019ve taken their brand, their sponsorship appeal, their global fandom, and turned it into varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n They\u2019re a colossus \u2013 a shadow of their despised and dastardly dominance nowadays, maybe, but they\u2019re not wiped out on the mat just yet.<\/p>\n United don\u2019t just buy great players. They make their own. For all their spending in the transfer market, they almost always have at least one academy product in their first team. It\u2019s kind of a thing.<\/p>\n Clubs up and down the Premier League<\/strong><\/a> are looking to their player development as the magical route to blissful spending inside PSR compliance but United, perhaps more than anyone, know the intangible benefits of bringing players through for their own line-up.<\/p>\n Consider where United are today.<\/p>\n They finished a few places outside the Premier League relegation zone and might have been even lower if Aston Villa<\/strong><\/a> hadn\u2019t laid an egg on the last day of the season. They spurned a last-gasp chance for salvation by losing the Europa League final. They were awful.<\/p>\n United have backed their head coach after a poor season in which the tone was set by his predecessor and a club hierarchy that leaves an enormous amount to be desired.<\/p>\n Amorim has been anointed as the rescuer of a club that needs to become Manchester United again. The Red Devils must bounce back and they haven\u2019t got the time or margin of error they might think.<\/p>\n Cunha is the embodiment of one strand of that rejuvenation but they need players like Mainoo too. United\u2019s empire was built upon them.<\/p>\n The peg is square. What shape is the hole?<\/p>\n Mainoo can control and affect the game. He travels nicely with the ball and can influence the play by doing the simple things well in the middle of the pitch with the easy confidence of a player ten years older.<\/p>\n David Beckham won\u2019t look enviously into his passing toolkit but Mainoo is more than just a relaxed character in midfield. What he does there is technical.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is how he prepares before he receives the ball,\u201d former United academy coach Paul McGuinness told Adam Bate<\/a> before the European Championships.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he does off the ball makes it seem like he has time on it. To receive it, he has to look before it comes. Amateur players look up after they have received the ball and then decide what they are going to do. The top professionals, and that is a good phrase for Kobbie, they are efficient and everything they do has a flow to it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the reasons Amorim will even make it as far as the start of the new season is that he adheres to a specific system and didn\u2019t have the players to apply it mid-season with any degree of success \u2013 it\u2019s almost like somebody should have said something.<\/p>\n The outrageously talented tactical analyst and tea-maker Adam Clery recently filmed a video explaining why Cunha is the perfect signing for United\u2019s system<\/a>.<\/p>\n In his illustration of Amorim\u2019s 3-4-3, Clery defined the four players midfield players as follows: Flying Machine on the left behind(ish) an inverted winger, Inverting Enthusiast on the right behind(ish) a creative number 10, and a Ball Winner and Plays Everywhere in the centre.<\/p>\n His energy and tenacity contribute to a midfield\u2019s ball-winning ability too but that Plays Anywhere role is made for Mainoo.<\/p>\n United\u2019s recruitment should be defined entirely by the system if they\u2019re to climb back up the table in any meaningful way and, in Mainoo, they have a player ready to develop into one of the most important spots.<\/p>\n A season to define a lifetime?<\/p>\n One year in every four, the decisions made by players take on a different hue. 2025 is a World Cup year minus one, the year in every World Cup cycle in which players either don\u2019t move or seek a safe bet with the attention of their international managers in mind.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no obvious buyer for Mainoo but PSR can do funny things and Bruno Fernandes not going to the Saudi Pro League means that the chances of the midfielder leaving are higher than zero.<\/p>\n One of the major problems with the way football finance is governed by the Premier League and other bodies in Europe is its dehumanising impact on players. In the very worst cases, they\u2019re shuffled around like pawns on a chessboard. They are their book value and nothing more.<\/p>\n But if Mainoo has a say, he should stay. He needs regular football in a familiar setting and that means both staying fit and staying put.<\/p>\n If Mainoo were to leave it would be a big deal. As a United youth made good he\u2019s part of a rich heritage and his premature departure would shine a light on PSR\u2019s negative impacts. He is, culturally and tactically, where he should be.<\/p>\n Yet there\u2019s another pattern emerging. As United falter, exiled players and discarded pieces are demonstrating an ability to perform elsewhere.<\/p>\n Marcus Rashford was loaned to Villa and took a big step back towards his best. Jadon Sancho at least did enough at Chelsea to get a move away from Old Trafford this summer. Antony might even have played himself back into Amorim\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n Scott McTominay joined Napoli last summer and a year later he\u2019s a Serie A champion, the league\u2019s official MVP, one of the most successful Brits in Italian football history and a beloved adopted son of Naples.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not bad, but it\u2019s not for Mainoo. Not yet. United is the right spot for the 20-year-old despite last season because he\u2019s at a club that needs him, a club he loves, and a club where he will be able to continue his development \u2013 development he still needs \u2013 without the upheaval of a transfer.<\/p>\n This article was originally published<\/a> on High Protein Beef Paste<\/a>, an entirely free weekly football newsletter to which you should subscribe immediately.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England were a lot of things at Euro 2024 but spectacular wasn\u2019t one of them. Reaching the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,14147,4884,225,12243,2465,98,101,99,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-215951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-f365-says","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-kobbie-mainoo","14":"tag-manchester","15":"tag-manchester-united","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-ruben-amorim","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114749860662707416","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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