What next for Gabriel and Man Utd?

Before what was intended to be a historic night at Old Trafford, Manchester United are still digesting the reality that JJ Gabriel wants to leave.

The club have been left reeling at the sudden downturn in relations.

Only a week ago Gabriel scored a hat-trick on his Uefa Youth League debut at Leigh that seemed to be the prelude to becoming United's youngest player in history by making his debut against Brighton in the Carabao Cup third round on Wednesday.

Now United are scrambling. Chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox are involved in talks they hope will result in their 15-year-old reversing his plan and choosing to stay.

It feels like a forlorn task.

A belief that promises have been broken and a certainty over Gabriel's current abilities and eventual destiny mean trust is low.

Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris St-Germain are among the European heavyweight clubs monitoring the situation.

Gabriel's potential is well known.

All England's leading clubs have seen it first hand given he was named Under-18 Premier League player of the year last season, even though he was only 14 when the campaign began.

He scored 23 goals in the Premier League Under-18 competition and three in the FA Youth Cup. He was the star man in a United side that reached the Premier League Under-18 cup final and the FA Youth Cup final. He was the Premier League Under-18 Player of the Year and United's Under-18 Player of the Year.

The achievements and accolades were in recognition of a player who has balance, pace, close control and a powerful shot. This season he has shown a willingness to get stuck in to try and win the ball back.

"The best 15-year-old in Europe," was how the forward was described by one United source recently.

United Under-21s coach Adam Lawrence made a salient point in the aftermath of that Uefa Youth League victory over Sabah FK.

"The first thing in my job is not to ruin him," said Lawrence. "When you have a talented player like JJ, you obviously don't want to stifle their freedom and their creativity."

Talent like that grabs attention and is not confined to these shores. Real, Barcelona and PSG focus on elite youth players. That is what is happening here.

Can United make him stay?

This is where is gets tricky.

United's initial response to the publicity around Gabriel's future was to say privately that they would try to persuade him his future was best served staying where he is.

They also advised that Gabriel's registration with them runs until the end of the season.

That may well buy them time when it comes to potential moves to Premier League rivals. But what about European giants?

Gabriel has a European Union passport. His mother is of Greek-Cypriot heritage and his father won two caps for the Republic of Ireland.

In 2016 the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an appeal by Argentine club Velez Sarsfield - who tried to block one of their 16-year-old players moving to Manchester City - on the basis he was a dual Argentine-Italian national and, as an EU national, should be allowed to transfer to a club within the European Union even though he was coming in from an external country.

West Brom received no compensation when a 16-year-old Louie Barry left for Barcelona in 2019 as Fifa ruled that West Brom failed to formally offer him a scholarship.

West Brom had claimed 130,000 euros (£111,000) in training compensation. Barry left Barca for Aston Villa for just under £1m six months later.

The worst-case scenario for United is Gabriel walks away when he turns 16 on 6 October and they end up with no compensation for a player whose market value, even at this tender age and with so much promise unfulfilled, can be measured in millions.

Gabriel is not the first young player to find himself at odds with his club over their future direction.

Jadon Sancho was 17 when he stopped training at City to force through a £10m move to Borussia Dortmund in the belief that he would play more often in Germany than under Pep Guardiola.

Morgan Rogers was Barry's team-mate in the West Brom side that reached the FA Youth Cup semi-final in 2019. Within three months he had left for City, a move completed on his 17th birthday.

Sources feel that, in meetings with the United hierarchy that led to Gabriel committing his short-term future to the club last summer, promises were made over his career path that have not been kept.

He did start to appear in senior training sessions, initially under Ruben Amorim and then Michael Carrick, but speculation around a senior debut last season, which could only be in the FA Cup, was doused by Under-18s coach Darren Fletcher, who had by now taken the senior team manager's role on an interim basis following Amorim's dismissal. Fletcher felt it was too early for Gabriel.