JJ Gabriel has told Manchester United he wants to leave, with the teenager’s decision coming after he was left out of Michael Carrick’s squad for the 10 September Champions League game against Sabah FK.
The development marks a clear escalation in the situation around the 16-year-old forward, who scored a hat-trick against Sabah FK in a Uefa Youth League match at Leigh Sports Village on the same day he turned 16. United then omitted him from the senior squad for the later Sabah FK meeting, and that selection call appears to have been the turning point in a dispute that had already been simmering for some time.
How the situation reached this point
The tension between Gabriel’s camp and Manchester United was not sudden. At the beginning of July, he did not report for the start of the academy’s pre-season training schedule despite being asked to do so. United then announced their Uefa A list on 3 September, and Gabriel was not included. A few days later, on 8 September, he was still present for the club’s official team photographs, showing that the relationship had not yet fully broken down.
By 10 September, however, the picture had changed. Gabriel was not selected by Carrick for the Champions League game against Sabah FK and later informed the club that he intended to leave. The sequence matters because it shows the split moving from frustration over opportunities and registration issues to an active push for an exit.
What happens next
Manchester United believe they made clear that they viewed Gabriel as an important part of their first-team future, but the player now seems set on a different path. He is also in a stronger position to move to Europe more easily now that he has a European Union passport, which may widen the range of clubs able to pursue him.
United were due to play Brighton in the EFL Cup on 16 September, but by then Gabriel had already left the country. That timing underlines how quickly the situation has moved once the Sabah FK omission turned into a formal decision from the player’s side.
The next step now is less about whether there is interest and more about how the registration issue is handled as Manchester United and JJ Gabriel move toward a likely separation.
