OLD TRAFFORD — If nothing else, he’ll always have this. With 10 minutes remaining of Manchester United’s final home game of a wretched league season by comparison to vast swathes of their history, Amad Diallo walked slowly from the pitch to an Old Trafford standing ovation. This was his second Premier League start and his first Man of the Match performance.
Impressing as a Manchester United right winger this season is a small jump over a low bar. Seven different players have started a Premier League match in that position this year. Antony has done so most often and the only other with more than three starts is Alejandro Garnacho, who is now first choice on the left.
After that, you have the out of position, the forgettable and the forgotten: Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes, Omari Forson and Facundo Pellistri. That’s not even counting Jadon Sancho, soon to start a Champions League final on loan from a club who have won one knockout match in that competition in a decade. No, nothing about any of this makes sense.
Which leaves Amad as something of an exception: a naturally right-sided winger with some first-team experience who might actually be capable of adding something to this team other than adding to the pile of frustrating mediocrity.
This has been a wasted season and these are its final flickers. Any chance to glean fragments of positivity, even if a new manager will enjoy them, should be taken greedily. A 3-2 home win over Newcastle – who still had more than 20 shots – is not proof of any surge in the right direction collectively, but you find your hope in small pockets. Fernandes was back and influential. Kobbie Mainoo scored again. Casemiro and Sofyan Amrabat were actual footballers? Amad was better than them all.
It wasn’t just that Amad scored, matching Antony’s league total from this season with a drilled strike that owed everything to him being left free by Anthony Gordon and keeping his eye on the ball. It’s that there is suddenly a directness to his play that is refreshing after watching Antony either run down blind alleys or turn back and play a simple pass that resets the move.
What a strike
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 15, 2024
Amad Diallo scores his first Premier League goal for Manchester United!pic.twitter.com/FNywH96lbZ
Over a small sample size, that directness is difference-making. Amad stretched Newcastle by forcing Lewis Hall back. He helped to create the first goal with intricate skill and ball retention, both of which Antony can offer but only in odd spurts and mostly this season against League Two Newport County. If Amad is mostly flattered by the comparison, supporters are pretty sick of watching an £85m winger be bad and then moan about it.
Amad has had to wait for this chance – nor is he an academy graduate, instead an expensive signing who you had only forgotten about because he’s barely played. After a successful loan season at Sunderland in the Championship, he merited faith from Erik ten Hag if only because nobody else had made that position theirs in Amad’s absence. His reward? Thirty-six league minutes before late February.
And now to wonder “what if?”. Before Wednesday, Antony had played 1,324 league minutes and Diallo just 235. If those numbers had been reversed, what would Manchester United have missed and what may they have gained? In terms of raw numbers, a single goal and a single assist, barely a puddle.
But in practice: a message that reputation, transfer fee and playing for the gaffer’s old club does not give you a VIP pass to regular league starts. On Wednesday night, Amad performed better than Antony has in any of his 38 appearances this season. Some other manager might not make the same mistake.
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