Hands up if you had forgotten about Timothy Fosu-Mensah.
The Dutchman has been on the books at Manchester United for a long time now but has failed to really establish himself as a key part of the first-team since making a real breakthrough when Louis van Gaal was still in charge.
Speaking after a clash against Everton back in 2016 in which Fosu-Mensah replaced Marcos Rojo and delivered the cross for Anthony Martial’s winner, Van Gaal lauded the defender for seizing his opportunity.
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He said: “I think Rojo has a problem with his jet-leg. I said also to Timothy that you have to take profit of it, and when a player is doing that then that is also a little bit of luck for the manager. But I think every credit is with the player, for Timothy, and not for the manager.”
Under the former United boss, Fosu-Mensah played ten times, and then when Jose Mourinho came into the Old Trafford dugout, he also featured sporadically too, getting onto the pitch on 11 occasions.
But the £6.3m-rated ace has seen his progress hindered by injuries, not least by the cruciate ligament problem he suffered whilst on loan at Fulham last season – according to Transfermarkt, after making his return to action only in January 2020, he had missed 271 days of action, or 60 total games to be precise.
Defence is arguably the one area in which the Red Devils are seemingly well-stocked, with centre-back seeing a whole host of options being available for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the likes of Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly, Axel Tuanzebe and Phil Jones, amongst others. And then, if you consider Fosu-Mensah’s ability to play at full-back too, he has Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Diogo Dalot, Brandon Williams and Luke Shaw all ahead of him in the pecking order.
The path simply isn’t there for the Dutchman to really genuinely stake his claim in the first-team, and it’s exactly why United should cut their losses on the versatile ace. He may have promised big things after bursting onto the scene a few years ago, but he hasn’t shown why he is worthy of a place in the squad for next season.
Meanwhile, Man Utd are set to battle their Premier League rivals over this star.
