“Obviously, it’s not something that I wanted,” Angel Gomes said in 2022, reflecting on the daunting “wonderkid” title that, five years after becoming the youngest player to feature for Manchester United since 1953, he had thus far failed to live up to.
Gomes, the first player born in the 2000s to feature in the Premier League, was thrust into the spotlight when he made his debut, coming off the bench in an otherwise unmemorable and inconsequential 2-0 victory against Crystal Palace in May 2017.
“I came on and Michael Carrick did everything possible to allow me to touch the ball,” the Lille midfielder said. “Every time he had it, I could see that he was looking for me,.” Seven years later, stylistically, he bares a closer resemblance to Carrick than he does the tricky and diminutive No 10 who broke on to the scene to such fanfare.
His potential was recognised not only at club level but by the England setup. In 2017, Gomes wore the captain’s armband on two occasions as a team that also contained Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Marc Guéhi won the Under-17 World Cup. Unlike that trio, he has had to wait for his chance to make his senior debut for the national team. Last week’s call-up has provided it.
Ultimately, chances to play weren’t forthcoming at Old Trafford, and Gomes took the “difficult” decision to leave in 2020. “I had to follow my heart … I felt that, if I had stayed, there wouldn’t have been a lot of opportunities for me,” he said.
He joined Lille, having caught the eye of Luís Campos, who is now the Paris Saint-Germain sporting director. However, opportunities in northern France were not immediately forthcoming either, so he was shipped off on a season’s loan to Boavista in Portugal.
When he returned to Lille, he played only a bit-part role under Jocelyn Gourvennec, starting 12 Ligue 1 games during the 2021-22 season. It was only when Paulo Fonseca arrived at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy that Gomes’s career began to take the trajectory that the England and United youth coaches had anticipated.
In Gomes, Fonseca didn’t necessarily see a No 10, at least not at first, but a deep-lying playmaker, capable of influencing the game in different ways and from different areas of the pitch. It was a logical albeit not immediately apparent choice, given Gomes’s weaknesses in front of goal.
“Try, try and score,” he recalls Cristiano Ronaldo telling him in a training session at United. But that has never been his game. “Don’t get me wrong, I like to score goals,” he told L’Équipe. “It’s a great feeling, but I prefer an assist because behind an assist there is a lot of thinking. It is very precise. Sometimes it seems simple but when you’re on the pitch you understand the difficulty in finding the right angle, the right timing. I like this kind of work, the calculation behind it. That’s the story of my game,.”
Despite his slight frame, Gomes has thrived in a deeper role, managing to evade and withstand pressure, and proving a valuable passer of the ball for Lille; he completed the sixth-most progressive passes of any Ligue 1 player last season. On his United debut, it was Carrick who dictated play; that is now a role filled by Gomes at Lille.
However, moving deeper and becoming more integral in the buildup have not come to the detriment of Gomes’s creativity and decisiveness in the final third. Last season, only PSG’s Ousmane Dembélé (nine) registered more assists than Gomes’s eight.
Those statistics attest to a creativity that, while not as conspicuous as that of Foden or Sancho, is no less effective. His deadly set-piece delivery, combined with a strong connection with Jonathan David – on and off the pitch – meant that he became a key player in a Lille side brimming with individual quality. Alongside Lucas Chevalier, Leny Yoro and David, Gomes was part of the youthful spine that secured qualification for the Champions League.
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“Angel is maybe the most intelligent player I have in my team,” Fonseca, who left in the summer to take the Milan job, said in April. “He understands faster than the others everything about the game; he loves the game.”
That intelligence allowed him to adapt to a deeper role while implementing Fonseca’s instructions, built around a possession-based style. However, in midfield, Gomes does have to contend with a physical deficit, and the partnership struck between Benjamin André and Nabil Bentaleb last season in the midfield pivot pushed the Englishman back into more advanced positions, closer to David, who after a difficult start to the season, finished in prolific form; only Kylian Mbappé scored more than the Canada international. He has Gomes to thank for that, at least in part.
“When we have Angel closer to the attack, when he plays between the lines … he is more decisive,” Fonseca said. “He understands timing and space and his positioning changes his intentions.” From a midfield metronome to an incisive No 10, Gomes has, during his time in France, added versatility and variety to his game, making himself indispensable at club level … and maybe soon at international level, too.
Gomes has impressed Lee Carsley, a manager with whom he has worked for years. “He’s a player that can play deeper or as a No 10 … I think people will enjoy seeing Angel play,” said the interim England head coach, who recalls a youth match between Manchester United and Manchester City in which Gomes was “as good as Phil Foden”.
Whereas Foden’s technical quality quickly earned him a place in the England setup, Gomes has had to evolve and adapt, out of the spotlight, away from England and away from Old Trafford, a place he still calls home. Since leaving, it has been a meandering journey via Porto and the Hauts-de-France region but one that has made him a more complete player, one worthy of a maiden England call-up.