It is usually around this time of year that we are reminded of our embarrassing relatives, whether it’s your mum bringing up everything you’ve ever done/said/eaten over the Christmas dinner to your new partner, or that uncle who starts flirting with the much, much younger bar staff during a festive pint at the local boozer.
For Kobbie Mainoo, the relative embarrassing him this year is his half-brother.
Jordan Mainoo-Hames – who, as a former Love Island contestant is definitely famous in his own right and not just piggybacking off his younger brother’s success – was spotted at Old Trafford on Monday. I say spotted; Jordan did everything in his power to be seen.
With a wristband that almost certainly means he has access to the posh seats on one hand and a presumably expensive gold watch on the other, Jordan took himself to the very front row of Old Trafford, turned around, leaned on the advertising hoarding and with a rather smug look on his face, looked back at the crowd to reveal a T-shirt reading ‘FREE KOBBIE MAINOO’, a slogan that is usually reserved for trapped peace leaders or generally someone who actually deserves such sympathy.
The incarcerated man in question took up a familiar spot on the United bench for Monday’s barnburner against Bournemouth. He appeared just after the hour mark, replacing Casemiro, and went on to have 29 touches in the hockey-style game.
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The Bournemouth match was apparently the last straw for the Mainoo family. The player has started just one game this season, the club’s embarrassing FA Cup exit at the hands of Grimsby, and has been using every avenue possible to put pressure on the manager to play him or sell him. Media briefings suggest he wants a permanent exit but his status as an academy product with a high potential ability ceiling means United are unwilling to sanction anything more than a loan.
We don’t know how much Mainoo himself had to do with his brother’s ‘protest’ or why Jordan felt now was the time to make a stand for the man on £20,000 a week, but it all seems rather unnecessary.
His early breakthrough makes it easy to forget that he is only 20. For comparison, when Phil Foden was the same age, he made 28 league appearances. Mainoo looks likely to reach that same figure this year.
Mainoo’s case is not helped by the fact that two of United’s best performers this year have been their central midfielders: Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro. Fernandes, as club captain and still the team’s best creator even in a more reserved role, was never going to be dropped, while Casemiro’s form has picked up this year. Jordan’s heart must have sunk when both of them netted against Bournemouth. Or maybe it soared because this was his moment.
Jordan’s PR stunt is particularly poorly timed as is it came at the final game before a number of United’s first-team regulars depart for AFCON. Bryan Mbeumo, Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui will all leave for the tournament and while not necessarily direct competition for Mainoo, it will likely mean an increase in playing time as Ruben Amorim is forced to use more of his squad.
The final issue, and perhaps most important one, for Mainoo is that he has not been all that good when called upon. Sure, a few minutes here and there is hardly an ideal way to build into a rhythm, but if he was coming on and producing game-changing moments as Foden did, his place on the bench would be a lot harder for Amorim to maintain. Instead, Mainoo has played 212 minutes, made zero assists and scored zero goals.
Manchester United is a club that seems to attract more – for lack of a better term – nonsense than others. Which other Premier League manager can be expected to answer questions about a player’s brother in open revolt one minute and then their thoughts on a man growing his hair until they win five games in a row?
As with any tantrum, you have to wonder what they thought the outcome of all this would be? Did Jordan think that when he unveiled the shirt, the Old Trafford crowd would say ‘do you know what? Forget that we are having our best season for a number of years and that our highly-rated young manager looks to have finally found a way to win games, let’s disrupt the team by chanting the name of a player who is on the bench.’
Or did Jordan think the Stretford End would suddenly burst into such rapturous chanting for Mainoo that Amorim would change his team-sheet before the game. Maybe he hoped he would be captain.
In the end, the actual result is another stick for certain sections of the media to beat Amorim with. Instead of ‘why were you not able to beat Bournemouth?’, it becomes ‘why were you not able to beat Bournemouth and do you think benching the future of English football is clever?’
Have sympathy for the United press officer who presumably had to approach Amorim on Tuesday morning and say ‘Morning boss. Umm have you ever heard of Love Island?’ before explaining the whole sorry affair.
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