Could ‘commentator’s nightmare’ Angel Gomes return to Man Utd through the back door? | OneFootball

Angel Gomes was being heralded as the possible solution for Manchester United and England a little over a year ago, but now the diminutive midfield conductor finds himself at rock-bottom Wolves after a summer move to Marseille failed to pay dividends. But might a brief spell in the Premier League open up a back door to his boyhood team?

“Coming here, I’ll try and show what I can do, what I’m about, try and be a positive addition to the team, and try to be as positive as possible to help in all aspects,” Gomes has said having made the loan switch to Wolves, aware that the rest of the season will act as a four-month shop window for alternative suitors.

Given his “excitement” at returning to the Premier League, he’s not about to agree to a permanent move to a Championship-bound side, should Wolves take up the option from Marseille, if there are top flight sides keen on signing him in the summer.

After Jose Mourinho nearly made him cry at Manchester United amid a crisis of confidence which threatened to derail his career entirely, Gomes opted to leave for France despite Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s attempts to keep him at Old Trafford. Some hugely impressive displays at the heart of Lille’s midfield led to a shock England call from Lee Carsley for the Nations League games at the end of 2024.

At that stage, when Manchester United were knee-deep in a midfield crisis which has now abated but not yet been solved, Gomes was heavily linked with a return to his former club, for whom he made his senior debut alongside a certain Michael Carrick.

“I came on and Michael Carrick did everything possible to allow me to touch the ball,” Gomes told The Guardian about his United debut in 2018. “Every time he had it, I could see that he was looking for me.”

Carrick named Gomes, along with Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku, Luke Shaw and Jesse Lingard, as “real, real talent” which made him feel as though he could retire with the club in safe hands. There’s clearly a mutual respect.

Whether there’s enough respect to push Carrick into vouching for Gomes in a discussion with the INEOS bosses over midfield additions in the summer remains to be seen, which when added to the uncertainty of Carrick’s long-term future at the club and if the United chiefs will take any notice of his thoughts on transfers if he is handed the reins on a permanent basis combines to make Gomes to Manchester United feel a whole lot of unlikely.

But amid talk of the Red Devils analysts processing the stats of Elliot Anderson, Adam Wharton and Carlos Baleba with a view to picking their ideal new midfielder, very little has been made of the very high likelihood that they’ll need two of them, if – as we’re led to believe – Manuel Ugarte is set to follow Casemiro out of the club having failed to meet the mark at Old Trafford.

Unless they have £200m to spend on two of those three top candidates, and they don’t, United are going to need to source a low-cost option to bolster the squad on top of that marquee addition.

Truth is it’s going to be hard for Gomes to prove he’s that option in one of the worst teams in Premier League history, just as it will be hard for commentators to cover Wolves games featuring Angel Gomes alongside namesakes Joao, Rodrigo and Toti, but at least he’s been handed the chance to knock on that back door to Manchester United, which Carrick may be more amenable than others to open if he’s still in the job.