Wayne Rooney has said the growing uncertainty around JJ Gabriel at Manchester United was not unexpected, insisting that those close to the academy scene could see the situation developing.<\/p>\n
The 15-year-old has been at the centre of major attention after spending only eight minutes on the pitch during pre-season and missing out on the Champions League roster because he needed \u2018List A\u2019 status due to his age. On the same day United began their league phase with a 4-0 win over Sabah at Old Trafford, Gabriel struck a hat-trick against Sabah\u2019s U-19s in the UEFA Youth League.<\/p>\n
Since then, he has not trained, and reports of his wish to leave emerged the day before United faced Brighton & Hove Albion in the Carabao Cup third round last week. It was also suggested that there had been plans to include him in that squad with an eye on a debut.<\/p>\n
Rooney addressed the issue on the latest episode of Stick to United, saying he has seen \u201cJJ grow up\u201d because his own teenage son, Kai, has been involved in the same academy teams. He added that the reaction from outside observers should not have come as a shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, Rooney said, Aanyone close to it knew that was coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
United can challenge the request for Gabriel\u2019s registration to be cancelled, although by the end of the season he would be free to leave anyway. A move abroad could come sooner, with his 16th birthday next month potentially opening the door to Spain or another European Union state. Real Madrid and Barcelona are strongly linked, while Bayern Munich are also said to be interested.<\/p>\n
Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea would have to wait until the summer unless United decide otherwise, which appears unlikely.<\/p>\n
Rooney also defended the club\u2019s handling of the youngster, saying, \u201cIn fairness to Manchester United they have done everything, absolutely everything, to keep him at the club,\u201d before adding that special treatment is part of managing exceptional talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club have treated him probably differently to the other players because he is such a special player. I know, I recognize that, because I was that player at Everton. I was getting that treatment at Everton,\u201d he reflected. \u201cAs a club, you need to do [it] to try to keep the better players. It\u2019s disappointing because [Gabriel] is such a top player and a lovely kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabriel is viewed as a generational talent, even if he cannot legally drive in the U.K. for another year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney says United did all they could to keep JJ Gabriel, whose future remains unresolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[1066,180,182],"class_list":["post-20278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-carabao-cup","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}