Ligue 1 club, Lille, has confirmed the signature of Angel Gomes on a five-year deal after leaving Manchester United on a free transfer.
The announcement on the club’s website is following the midfielder’s departure from Manchester United in July.
After putting pen to paper for the club, the 19-year-old has been immediately loaned to Boavista after joining the Ligue 1 side.
“The LOSC formalizes today the recruitment of the young attacking midfielder, Angel Gomes (19). The English U20 international, who played last season at Manchester United, signed with the Lille club until 2025. He will also play this season in the shirt of Boavista FC (Portugal) where he is on loan for the entire season 2020-2021,” a statement on the club’s website reads.
Stats of Angel Gomes at Manchester United
Since Gomes is now a Lille player, let’s take a cursory look at his journey Manchester United that ended on July 1.
The 19-year-old had been with the Red Devils since the age of five. He finally made his first-team debut in May 2017 to become the youngest player to play for the club (at 16 years, 263 days old) since Duncan Edwards in 1953.
Due to lack of opportunities, Gomes, a World Cup winner with England U17 in 2017 made just eight appearances for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer since he replaced Jose Mourinho as manager in December 2018. Before his departure, he couldn’t make a Premier League start.
In order to help him fulfill his potential, United wanted Gomes to stay at the club, but that won’t be the case.
The departure of Gomes, who won the Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year Award in 201 will still bring about many questions despite the fact that United wanted him to continue his development after becoming the first player born in the 21st century to play for the club in the Premier League.
It was gathered that the Red Devils had a contract on the table for him a long time ago after committing other youngsters recently. Expecting Gomes to follow suit by putting pen to paper, but the numbers didn’t add up for the 19-year-old and his advisors.
Solskjaer, who has been asked on several occasions about Gomes’ contract became irked in recent days, partly because there was no progress on agreeing on a deal and also because he wanted to retain the player in his first-team squad.
Thus, this is the end of the long-drawn-out contract dispute. Solskjaer can now focus on the remaining members of the team and look towards the transfer market for players that could develop the team further.
