Greenwood: United’s steadfast teen striker
KOLKATA: Some like Freddy Adu, Bojan Krkic and Francis Jeffers do not live up to the promise they show as teenagers. Others like Adnan Januzaj and Martin Odegaard try rebuilding careers after an early mismatch in potential and performance. The jury was out on whether Marcus Rashford would deliver as an 18-year-old when he got his first start, against FC Midtjylland. And there are players like Kaka who, though a debutant at Sao Paulo at 18, was said to be a late bloomer by the club’s academy staff.
Mason Greenwood is none of the above. It is almost prescient that Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ topped the charts in 2001, the year he was born. “I’ve watched him before he got to the first team—it was never a matter of if he was going to play with us, it was just when,” Rashford has said.
Having joined the Manchester United academy when he was six, Greenwood bagged the Jimmy Murphy award in 2018-19. It is given to United’s best young player and is named after the man who was important in grooming Busby Babes and in the team’s rebuilding after the Munich air crash. In the time of no substitutes, Murphy, who died in 1989, had to know when the young ones could be delivered to Matt Busby.
Having been involved in 1.3 goals per game last term, Greenwood was ready even before he got his first senior start—against Astana in the Europa League. Before that September game, United coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had rated Greenwood, still not 18, as one of the best finishers he had seen.
Between then and now, Greenwood has notched up some staggering numbers. Such as 17 goals and five assists in 2411 minutes in 47 games. That is being involved in a goal every 109.5 minutes. That is also equalling the maximum goals by a United teenager in a season, matching Brian Kidd, George Best and Wayne Rooney.
United’s young front three of Rashford, Anthony Martial and Greenwood have scored a combined 61 goals in all competitions. Premier League winners Liverpool’s frontline of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino has 56.
United being alive in the Europa League means Greenwood could get four more games before this stop-start season ends. Greenwood has averaged a goal every 92 minutes in Europa League this term. When football stopped for over three months due to Covid-19, Greenwood worked on his upper body, gaining 3kg of muscle mass. “Mason is looking more and more like a man,” said Solskjaer. He is the first teenager to score 10 league goals in the Premiership since Rooney in 2004-05.
Comparing Greenwood’s record in 50 games with football’s famous names the website www.90min.com found that Rooney had scored nine, Lionel Messi 13 and Cristiano Ronaldo 6.