For all the excitement around Chido Obi’s promotion to Manchester United’s first team in recent weeks, it was never lost on first team head coach Ruben Amorim or academy staff that he would eventually need to take a step back down.
Not because anything was wrong. Far from it. It is just that he needs more minutes than the cameos that are being afforded to him at senior level right now.
Since playing against Chelsea in this competition at the start of February he has played 78 minutes for United’s first team across the league and FA Cup. Here he would need to navigate more than 120 minutes as the main man.
So, having missed the FA Youth Cup quarter-final against Arsenal, his former club, here was the tournament’s top scorer leading the line once more for United’s Under-18s.
‘We are trying to to manage everything and Chido needs to play also, so we are helping the team and the player,’ Amorim said on Monday, confirming Mail Sport’s exclusive story on his Youth Cup inclusion.
Chido Obi played 120 minutes as Manchester United bowed out of the FA Youth Cup
Former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was in the crowd as United bowed out of the semi-final
‘We try to imagine next the game, we have to give minutes to the kid. We are trying to win that competition, to build something with the youth.’
It was clear from the off that as the away end sang out his name, Obi was eager to lay down an early marker. There was, you sensed, a level of urgency to get himself a goal.
His first effort, 12 minutes in, saw him nick the ball off Aston Villa captain Aidan Borland on the edge of the box before opening up to curl one on his right foot.
Only the strike curled high and over the bar into the back of Holte End to jeers from the home fans.
Six minutes later he had the ball in the net seconds after referee Ross Martin had blown up for a dubious foul on Villa goalkeeper Sam Proctor from Gabriele Biancheri. It was a close range finish, one you would expect Obi to convert, but again he was left frustrated.
What was noticeable was just how physical Villa’s defenders were being with Obi, pulling his shirt when they knew they could do it away from the eyes of the referee, and doubling up on him when he touched the ball on the half-turn.
In the previous three games he played it was Obi who was able to be the bully against Coventry City and Preston North End, where he scored a brace in each game, as well as against Chelsea when he bagged a hat-trick.
While he grew into this contest physically, often dropping deep to collect the ball and build up ahead of steam, it was a valuable exercise that perhaps outweighed the study session sat on the bench with the first team at Nottingham Forest.
Ruben Amorim was fully behind the decision for Obi (left) to drop back down to the Under-18s
Obi will have learned a lot more playing this match than from sitting on the first team bench
‘He’s in a good place at the moment,’ academy director Nick Cox told Mail Sport last week of Obi.
‘There have been opportunities to train with the first team and a few opportunities from off the bench. But let’s be honest, there’s been some injuries and some disruption to the squad.
‘The art is to just keep regularly reviewing where a player is at. You saw Kobbie [Mainoo] bounce between teams before he finally got in and Alejandro [Garnacho] was a little bit the same, so there’s always twists and turns.’
There were chances in the second half for Obi as there always would be. One dragged wide of the far post after switching onto his right foot on the edge of the box and a header that crashed against the post with 10 minutes to go.
There was still time for a booking before the 90 minutes was up after pushing and shoving match with TJ Carroll after he was flattened in an aerial duel and a chance in the six-yard box on the slide from Jaydan Kamason’s cross in extra time.
In the end he was shut out for the first time in this competition this season, a nod to the diligent and physical defending of Villa.
But this was still a night of learning and for that Amorim, Cox and Co were right to include him. Nights like these are more valuable in the long run to a watching brief at the City Ground.
