Kobbie Mainoo's next club choice should be obvious amid Chelsea and Man City interest

Go back in time a year or two, and it would have been hard to explain to any Manchester United fan quite why Kobbie Mainoo would be demanding a loan move away from Old Trafford – or why he would be stuck on the bench even after the club turned his request down flat.

Mainoo’s emergence and progress was one of the few pleasurable highlights of the difficult era which culminated in the decline and fall of Erik ten Hag’s empire, but his career seems to have stalled under Ruben Amorim, a coach whose system is entirely unsympathetic to Mainoo’s skill set and playing style.

While United may have kept hold of him for now, abundant rumours suggest that other Premier League teams would love to take him off of Amorim’s hands – and there were reports on Wednesday which suggested that local rivals Manchester City could even be among them alongside Chelsea and Newcastle, with Tottenham also mentioned elsewhere. But if Mainoo does leave, where should he go to get back on the path which saw him in the England team at just 18 years of age?

What’s going wrong for Kobbie Mainoo at Manchester United?

Mainoo flourished in Ten Hag’s 4-3-3 system which, for all its faults - not least its incoherent attempt to play a high attacking press and a low defensive block at the same time – suited the Stockport-born youngster down to the ground.

Mainoo was at his best in a condensed midfield, surrounded by team-mates where his quick give-and-goes and adroit skill at navigating tight spaces came to the fore. He was an excellent dribbler, but only over a short distance, and a fine creative passer, but not one given to long passes.

The needs of Amorim’s system couldn’t suit Mainoo much less. The Portuguese coach’s two-man midfield is tasked with covering vast swathes of space as they try to shut down attacking plays and Mainoo, more of a number eight than a defensive midfield, has found it hard to track runs as required and plug gaps. Under Ten Hag, he forced plenty of turnovers and won possession back with regularity – but since Amorim took over, his defensive production has tailed off.

Similarly, Amorim doesn’t put his midfielders in close proximity to each other and Mainoo’s skills on the ball have been stretched. Under Amorim’s tutelage, he has beaten fewer opposing players when asked to do more on his own, without supporting runners to provide options or to draw opposing midfielders out of the way.

There will, of course, be observers who want to find less technical reasons for his apparent decline – but in so many areas, Mainoo actually hasn’t declined at all. He is passing just as often, just as accurately and creating just as many chances. He is actually succeeding with more attempted tackles.

The only statistical concern would be the accuracy of his shooting, which tailed off dramatically between 2023/24 and 2024/25, but given that he has only taken a total of 28 shots in the Premier League since his debut that’s probably a quirk of a small sample size. Fundamentally, Mainoo hasn’t played any worse than he did under Ten Hag. He’s just being asked to play a role in which he isn’t comfortable – when he’s asked to play at all.

Small wonder, then, than Mainoo reportedly asked Manchester United to let him leave. But if he does get his wish eventually, will any of the teams alleged to be interested play a brand of football which suits him any better?

Why Kobbie Mainoo should consider Manchester City as his next destination

What Mainoo likely needs is a team who play with a three-man midfield (or at least a team who condense the pitch more effectively than United) and a team who don’t ask their midfielders to play a high percentage of long passes or to cover large areas of ground out of possession.

All four of the teams cropping up in the gossip columns – Manchester City, Chelsea, Spurs and Newcastle – fit that bill to some extent, but a team such as Chelsea likely wouldn’t play to his strengths quite as straightforwardly as the others.

Their usual midfield two, typically Moisés Caicedo and Enzo Fernández, are asked to cover large amounts of turf off the ball, and while Enzo Maresca has sometimes switched to a more conventional, balanced 4-3-3 formation and does condense the pitch to a degree, they also play considerably more long balls than any of the other three sides mentioned as they look to get the ball up the pitch quickly.

Chelsea would probably use Mainoo better than United (underlapping full-backs would help to bring more players infield in possession, which would likely help) but not to the same extent that the other sides mentioned do.

We’re still getting our first look at how Spurs will operate under Thomas Frank, of course, but the 4-3-3 currently in use, which already gives midfielder like Pape Sarr and Lucas Bergvall a certain amount of freedom to attack the channels, might suit Mainoo quite well. The signing of Xavi Simons could see them switch to a 4-2-3-1 which could change the dynamic and put a more defensive emphasis on the positions which Mainoo would be competing for, but there are still promising signs for a happy marriage between club and potential future signing.

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Newcastle, meanwhile, operate with much the same height of defensive line and condensing of the field as Chelsea but play fewer long passes and emphasis ball-carrying more. That may or may not suit Mainoo, but he should fit nicely with their all-action midfield three system. He has the technical and defensive chops, at least, and Eddie Howe is alleged to be especially keen on the signing.

But the team that would suit him most, at least on paper? Manchester City. They still play with one of the highest defensive lines in the league and have some of the smallest gaps between players, all while playing the fewest long passes. They emphasis quick interchanges, which Mainoo excels at. Mainoo and Pep Guardiola look made for each other.

Would he actually dare to make such a move for the sake of his career – and would United even consider a bid from their far, far noisier neighbours? That remains to be seen. Besides, much could change between now and the next couple of transfer windows, not least the coach.

Everything may work out very differently if Amorim ends up in the dole queue and a manager whose methods line up with Mainoo’s skills takes the helm. Mainoo isn’t going anywhere for at least two and a half months – how much could change between now and January? Or now and next summer, given how rare big-money transfers between Premier League teams are over the winter?

The odds are that Mainoo won’t end up at City. There is so much that might happen, and there are so many sensible reasons for the player to turn a move like that down flat for his own good even if everything remains much the same, that the odds are very much against. But from a purely footballing standpoint, it’s hard not to conclude that a side that play like Guardiola’s City are more or less exactly what Mainoo needs.