The 17-year-old got just four minutes off the bench against Tottenham, but he deserves more opportunities to shake up the flat Red Devils

Ruben Amorim is not usually shy about making substitutions during a game, be it hauling off Joshua Zirkzee after 33 minutes against Newcastle or the nine changes he has made at half-time in his 21 games in charge of Manchester United. And yet as he watched his side toil to the eighth defeat of his tenure at Tottenham on Sunday, the coach did not look to his bench until the 89th minute, when he decided to hand 17-year-old Chido Obi his debut.

There was a good reason for the Portuguese's inaction: United's sudden injury crisis mean that eight of his nine substitutes had no senior experience with the club. The only player who did was Victor Lindelof, who was returning from a long lay-off from injury and was not exactly the player United needed as they searched for an equaliser.

Obi had less than four minutes to make an impact against Spurs and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he did not touch the ball. His debut merely served as an opportunity to get him in the record books as United's third-youngest debutant in the Premier League and to get a taste, however brief, of playing in front of 60,000 people and millions more on television.

But the fact that Amorim turned to Obi shows just how much potential the teenager has and how much faith the club has in him. So with United so shorn of hope in any form, the time has come for Amorim to unleash the prolific teenager to give the team the shake-up it needs…

Getty/GOALFerocious scoring record

There has been a huge online clamour to see more of Obi in the first team from United supporters due to his incredible feats at youth level. Those began when he was still at Arsenal, when he scored seven goals in a single game last season against Norwich City Under-18s. It was not the highest amount of goals he had scored in one game, however; that was his logic-defying 10-goal haul in an U16s game against Liverpool.

The Danish striker, who moved to England when he was 13, has continued to set pulses racing since leaving Arsenal – where he scored 32 goals in 18 U18s appearances last season – for United in the summer of 2024. He scored a hat-trick in the space of 15 minutes on his full debut for United's U18s against Nottingham Forest and soon became the all-time top scorer in the U18 Premier League.

He has also set United's FA Youth Cup campaign alight, bagging doubles against Coventry and Preston before banging in a treble in the 5-1 routing of Chelsea last week.

AdvertisementGettyThrowing caution to the wind

Obi had begun training with the first team the same week as his hat-trick against Chelsea, although Amorim was keen to emphasise that it was due to the squad's injury problems. There was little indication that the youngster would be making his debut against Tottenham when the coach said: "I don’t want to say names, we have to be careful on that. We have problems this week, we called some young players to be in our training. He is one of them."

Amorim had also been cautious when asked about the teenager before the recent FA Cup tie with Leicester City, simply responding: "He's doing his job. He's improving and playing in the youth teams. We will see at the end of the season."

The Portuguese evidently changed his mind when he turned to the towering striker against Tottenham, hoping that his quick reactions in the box would help United grab an equaliser. "If you see Chido playing, he is clever with every ball lost in the box, so I wanted one more player," Amorim explained. "But I felt the team was good during the game and I didn't need to change. Chido was that one player who could, with one long ball, make the difference."

GettyNothing to lose

Coming off the bench for less than four minutes away from home for a desperate team bereft of confidence was certainly a big ask for Obi, but there are plenty more opportunities for him to showcase his ability, especially given that United's league season is only going to peter out into insignificance.

The Red Devils have 13 Premier League games remaining and the only thing they realistically have to fight for is avoiding their lowest finish since they came 13th in the 1989-90 season. The defeat at Tottenham saw Amorim's side drop to 15th in the table, and although jokes still abound about relegation, they are surely safe from that unthinkable fate, sitting 12 points above 18th-placed Ipswich Town. The lowest they could feasibly finish is 16th, while getting into the top half seems a tall orde as they are eight points behind 10th-placed Brighton.

Essentially, United have nothing to lose from giving Obi more opportunities up front from now until the end of the season. But they have plenty to gain.

Getty The Rashford precedent

The opportunity that has opened up for Obi in the team feels reminiscent of the circumstances that led to Marcus Rashford's incredible breakthrough into the first team in 2016. Rashford had nothing like the hype surrounding Obi when he was included in the starting line-up for a Europa League last-32 second leg at home to Midtjylland in February 2016 after Wayne Rooney was injured and Anthony Martial hurt himself in the warm-up.

But with his two goals against the Danish side and a brace three days later against Arsenal in the Premier League, Rashford shot to fame and breathed new life into a flagging season, leading to United eventually winning the FA Cup. The team could really do with a fresh injection of optimism and youthful energy right now, and so could the fans, who love nothing more than seeing young academy players promoted into the first team.

There are also a few United players who could be helped by Obi playing more regularly, though none more so than Rasmus Hojlund. The Dane has had a terrible campaign, scoring just twice in the league despite being the team's only natural No.9, with Joshua Zirkzee being much better suited to helping with the build-up play than scoring goals. Hojlund has started eight of Amorim's 13 Premier League games, but his meagre contribution was summed up by the fact that Manchester City's new signing Omar Marmoush managed to score more times in the opening 33 minutes against Newcastle on Saturday than the Dane has all season.