Peter Masiga

🚨 Roy Keane on JJ Gabriel’s reported agreement with Real Madrid after requesting to leave Manchester United at 15: “I’ll tell you what bothers me about this. It’s not Real Madrid. It’s not even a young player wanting to leave Manchester United. Players move clubs. That’s football. We’re discussing a boy who just turned 16 as if he’s a 28-year-old international arguing over a contract. I was speaking to someone about it. He said, ‘Roy, you can’t blame him. Real Madrid want him.’ I said, ‘Who’s blaming the boy for Real Madrid wanting him? Every young footballer would be excited. I’m asking why everything around him has become such a circus.’ He said, ‘Well, he wants first-team football.’ I said, ‘He’s 16. What exactly is the emergency?’ He was training with senior players, playing above his age group and getting pre-season opportunities. United clearly rated him. You don’t bring a 15-year-old around the first team by accident. Now we’re hearing reports about disagreements over minutes, which matches he should play in, and whether he should be training with the under-21s. If those reports are accurate, I’d be concerned. Because the under-21s aren’t beneath anybody. You’re not being insulted because a coach wants you to play 90 minutes with young players instead of 9 minutes with the first team. A former player said to me, ‘But Roy, if he’s good enough, he’s old enough.’ I told him, ‘Good enough for what? One match? 10 minutes? A whole season? There’s a difference. A good academy player doesn’t automatically become a finished Premier League footballer.’ He said, ‘You’d turn down Madrid, then?’ I said, ‘Don’t twist my words. Madrid are one of the biggest clubs in the world. But if the issue is not getting enough senior football at United, tell me how moving to Madrid guarantees him more.’ That’s what I’d want answered. What’s the actual plan? Where does he train? Who’s coaching him? How many proper matches does he play? What happens when he has a bad month? Because he’ll have one. Every young player does. United have a history of giving academy players chances. Mainoo got his. Rashford got his. Neither was handed a career because somebody demanded 20 minutes in a fixture. And people need to stop treating every youth-team performance like proof a boy has outgrown youth football. Score a hat-trick, brilliant. Go and do it again. Learn to play when you’re tired, when defenders kick you, when the team is losing and nobody is interested in your highlights. I remember an older professional telling a young lad, ‘You’re talented, but you’re not ready.’ The lad said, ‘How do you know?’ He replied, ‘Because every time somebody tells you to wait, you think they’re telling you you’re not good enough.’ That’s the danger. Patience starts sounding like disrespect. And I’ll say something else. There are adults involved in a young player’s career. Their job isn’t simply to get him the biggest move or the earliest debut. Their job is to make sure he’s still improving when the excitement disappears. If he has a poor six months at Madrid, will the same people making noise now tell him to be patient? Or will there be another argument, another club, another story? I don’t know the private conversations. But I don’t like seeing a child at the centre of this controversy before he’s established himself. Someone asked me, ‘Do you think he’ll fail?’ I said, ‘I hope he becomes a brilliant player. Why would I wish failure on a kid? But talent doesn’t protect you from bad decisions, and being wanted by Real Madrid doesn’t mean you’ve arrived.’ At 16, the biggest thing in your career shouldn’t be the club you’re threatening to leave. It should be what you’re learning on the training pitch. You can change clubs at any age. You don’t get your development years back.”