Can Man United winger Garnacho follow the Vinicius Jr blueprint? | OneFootball

Manchester United winger Alejandro Garnacho has described Vinícius Júnior as a “big inspiration” after the Real Madrid forward scored his first Champions League hat-trick against Borussia Dortmund.

Vinícius, expected to win the prestigious Ballon d’Or award next Monday, starred in Los Blancos’ sensational comeback win against the Bundesliga outfit, a repeat of the 2024 European Cup final.

Garnacho, watching from afar, was quick to name the Brazilian winger as a role model on social media, in reply to Vinícius’ latest Instagram post. The Manchester United attacker can learn valuable lessons from studying Vinícius. Though he doesn’t turn 21 until next July, he regularly starts for the Red Devils, and with that comes expectations, which he’s created on the back of a breakthrough 2023/24 campaign.

For one, no teenager registered more Premier League goals than Garnacho (seven), with only Savinho and Samu Omorodion (both nine) bettering him across Europe’s top five leagues. After the first eight matches of this season, he has conceded two goals, but it could have easily been more if not for some wasteful finishing.

Garnacho has taken 22 shots on goal, with ten on target. However, he has also missed four big chances, which ranks him highly in England’s top division. In the previous match against Brentford at home, the Argentine had eight shots in total — his joint-most in a Premier League game (also eight vs Chelsea in Dec 2023 & Luton in Feb 2024) — five of which were on target. He scored United’s equaliser as they came from one goal down to win 2-1.

It was a microcosm of Garnacho’s season so far. He completed two out of four take-ons, which brings his season tally to five successful dribbles out of 21 attempts. Garnacho managed to create two chances against the Bees but couldn’t add to his one assist for the campaign, and he hasn’t created a single ‘big chance’ yet.

That being said, Garnacho was United’s consistent goal threat over the weekend, which makes his substitute status in the first weeks of the season surprising. He’s started half of United’s 12 games and completed 90 minutes in their past four Premier League games.

It also shows where the Red Devils are that he’s more important to United than Cristiano Ronaldo was at the same age. The most games a teenage Ronaldo started in succession for United was eight, and the eighth was on his 20th birthday. For Garnacho, it was 38.

He is also their highest scorer in all competitions with five goals, which is half the tally he managed last season. Garnacho even went one better than Ronaldo did in his 20th year by reaching double digits (10) with that tap-in to start the ball rolling for United’s surprise FA Cup triumph against Manchester City. Ronaldo netted on nine occasions during the 2004/05 season.

Head coach Erik ten Hag was questioned about Garnacho, and he challenged him to start scoring regularly. “He has to [score more] if he wants to be a better player,” he said. “I know what he is capable of, that is why I play him so often. He is a threat and has scoring abilities but also a threat in one-v-ones, making key actions and giving assists to the team. The end product is definitely what we need and missed in the first games of the season.”