Valera Departs for Frankfurt - Sad but Inevitable

Somewhat prematurely, this blog suggested last season that Guillermo Varela might be on the verge of becoming United's regular right back.  A couple of iffy defensive performances later and he lost his place in the first team squad, though he memorably secured the Under 21 championship for United with a scorching strike at White Hart Lane.

Now, Varela has headed out on a season-long loan to Eintracht Frankfurt, probably - you suspect - never to return.  It's no real surprise because you suspected Mourinho would never fancy a player who stood out far more for his intelligent attacking play rather than his defensive qualities.

He'll always be remembered as the first signing David Moyes made during his brief stint at Old Trafford.  Yet his brief period in the first team squad and speedy departure tells us far more about the difference between Van Gaal and Mourinho.

Van Gall was often accused of ultra-conservatism, but I never really thought that was the real problem.  In some ways, it was the opposite.  His elevation of Varela to the first team occurred, we can see in retrospect, at a time when the player was far from ready.  Van Gaal did that a lot - propelled young players into the first team before their time and sometimes it worked (spectacularly, in the case of Marcus Rashford) but sometimes it didn't.  The result, let us be frank, was often increased demands being placed on players whose deficiencies in some areas of the game were often all too apparent.

Such was the case with Varela.  He was brilliant against Arsenal at home, in one of those rare games last season when the whole team was brilliant, but later memories recall Juan Mata being dragged well out of his own comfort zone to cover the space he'd left vacant and, worst of all, there was that Liverpool goal at Old Trafford that effectively ended our involvement in the Europa League: Countinho and Klopp had wasted no time in judging that a major achilles heal for United was Varela not being where he was supposed to be on the pitch and they duly exploited it.

Mourinho is, above all else, a consummate risk-manager who just won't take those kinds of gamble on young players, whatever he tries to claim to the contrary.  He doesn't tend to do untried and untested at the highest level. Nor will he be willing to take a chance on a full back who, for all his flair going forward, can't defend.   It's therefore no surprise that Varela, however popular he has been with United fans, is one of the first to be shown the door.