Manchester United have not recovered from the disease sorely missing-a-goal-guarantee-of-a-striker. The club did not listen to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, when he told them they just had to sign young Erling Haaland, for far too many seasons the Red Devils have lacked a world-class striker. The potential is great in academy player Chido Obi-Martin, but United are not quite able to manage this potential.
He has a wild 49 goals in 57 Premier League U18 games (split between Arsenal and Manchester United), and is considered United’s greatest striker talent. Who is now hardly happy with his development.
We’ve written a lot about Chido Obi-Martin since he opted out of Arsenal and offered a place in Mikel Arteta’s training sessions. During a few months in the academy at United as the Premier League 2’s all-time leading scorer, the 17-year-old (now 18) was called into the first team by Ruben Amorim. Without enough playing time at Michael Carrick, the club and Obi-Martin opted for loan. He was sent to Willem II in the Dutch league.
A Willem II team that had just been promoted this season, so the hope was that he would get a lot of playing time in a weaker team. But status after six games: A total of 48 minutes, and the last one was an eight-minute substitute.
English Unitedinfocus is convinced the teenager must be furious with Man Utd:
“In his last three games, he’s played eight, three and eight minutes respectively, which ironically is the kind of minutes he could have gotten at Old Trafford this season as well. With Benjamin Sesko’s injury, Obi could have been on the bench regularly, and given how poor their attacking play has been, you’d think Michael Carrick would have put him in just to increase his attacking numbers late in games.”
“Instead, he is set up to fail with these pitiful cameo appearances for a team that rarely creates chances on its best days and is asked to make a difference. He received a yellow card in their last game, as he tries his best to make a difference despite being made to fail, and Man Utd is to blame.”
“What discussions did there be with Willem II when the loan was approved? What was the project that was sold to Obi? Have the promises been broken? Did United even do their due diligence when agreeing to this move? There are so many questions that should certainly infuriate Obi with the club. One of the biggest talents in the English youth circuit is struggling to get minutes on a relegation-doomed Dutch team, and there is no way to justify the decision behind that move,” the English media outlet concludes.
