The club where anything that can go wrong will go wrong has returned. Manchester United were not wrong to sell Anthony Elanga, though.
United’s defeat at Nottingham Forest was a worst-case scenario for the club and those with informed opinions. A match decided by an ex-United forward. Ill-informed punters will be queuing up to opine it was a “mistake” of United to have let Elanga go.
They probably do not know Elanga did not score a single goal in his one full season with United. Or that he failed to score in his last 17 months at the club.
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United had Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Antony, Alejandro Garnacho, Amad and Facundo Pellistri to play on the flanks at the time Elanga left their 2023 pre-season tour early. Bruno Fernandes started the 2023 FA Cup final on the right-hand side, too.
Forest and Everton were the two clubs who contacted United about Elanga nearly two years ago. They had just finished 16th and 17th in the Premier League.
That United badly erred in signing Sancho and Antony in successive summers is a separate issue to Elanga’s efficacy. Garnacho had usurped him and Amad had higher potential. Pellistri was more of a game-changer off the bench than Elanga under Erik ten Hag.
United could not have foreseen that Rashford’s focus would waver after he was remunerated with a £325,000-a-week contract. They did not tell Rashford to host a birthday party at China White hours after a derby defeat or embark on a bender in Belfast. They were not responsible for Sancho failing to cut it in training or for Antony running into blind alleys and only using his left foot.
It says more about Rashford and Antony that they have improved at Aston Villa and Real Betis than it does their parent club. United pulled off a blinder convincing Chelsea to pay up to £25m for the flaky Sancho.
Elanga never struggled to put in a shift but he did struggle to put the ball between the posts. He scored four goals for United over two years. Elanga's chant to Rhythm Is A Dancer featured the erroneous lyric, 'scoring goals from everywhere'.
He was Ralf Rangnick’s academy legacy. Had Rangnick remained as a recruitment consultant, he would have championed Elanga and advised United to sell Rashford in 2022. Rashford’s change of scenery came two-and-a-half years later.
Rashford had his nose put out of joint by Elanga three years ago but it was under the interim management of Rangnick. Elanga started in Ten Hag's first three wins against Liverpool, Southampton and Leicester before he was dropped at the expense of debutant Antony. Antony scored on his debut against Arsenal.
Elanga had his chance. "We are talking about a lot of front players for Manchester United that are doing right but they had the chance here," Ruben Amorim reminded the press on Tuesday night. "At Manchester United you don’t have the time. I will not have the time. We have to get it right fast.
"You are not talking about players that didn’t play for Manchester United, they were here playing for Manchester United. In here the pressure is too big sometimes and sometimes you don’t get time and you should have time for these kids to develop.
"But for that you need a strong base to support all these kids and if you don’t have a strong base we are not going to help our kids. They had their chances and sometimes football is like that and the pressure of playing for Manchester United is really big."
Elanga is a selfless and speedy forward aligned with Forest's counter-attacking approach. He never sprinted with the ball as electrically for his goal against United as he did for United.
His goals for his former club were two headers and two side-footers in one-on-ones. Even at academy level, there were few times when Elanga accelerated so quickly you had to check if he had left tyre tracks in his wake.
Elanga is a credit to the United academy. He has had a diligent mentality drummed into him and it has enabled Elanga to establish himself as an upper-echelon Premier League starter.
He sat down with Ten Hag and the then-United football director John Murtough in New York as he prepared to pack his bags for Nottingham in July 2023. United included a sell-on clause when he was sold for a fee that could creep up to £20million over a four-year period.
The bigger picture is that United continuously make appalling recruitment decisions. Even in specific territories. In an era when Scandinavian forwards Elanga, Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak and Victor Gyokeres are lighting up the Premier League and the Champions League, United bought the weakest and paid the most for Rasmus Hojlund at £72million.
Elanga has twice as many Premier League goals as Hojlund this season. It was apparent to objective observers the moment that United struck a deal for Hojlund that they had made a mistake in settling for potential rather than proven quality. Amorim dropped Hojlund at the City Ground but got it wrong.
United did not get it wrong with Elanga.
