Manchester United youngster Timothy Fosu-Mensah featured for the Red Devils after three long years against Crystal Palace in the Premier League. Fosu-Mensah is a Netherlands international who has represented his country three times and is the product of the Ajax academy. Fosu-Mensah joined Manchester United’s academy in 2014 from Ajax and has it seems the 22-year old has his last chance at United.
Fosu-Mensah is a very versatile player because of his qualities and can play a host of different positions. He has played as centre-back, right-back, left-back and even in the defensive midfield, and has done fairly well in all positions. His speed and physicality are his priced qualities, as Fosu-Mensah is one of the fastest players in the world.
The Dutch joined Manchester United in 2014, moving from Ajax’s academy to the reserves of Manchester United. Under former Ajax and Netherlands manager, Louis Van Gaal, he has given his first chance to play for Manchester United in 2016. Fosu-Mensah debuted in a 3-2 win against Arsenal and appeared four times in total throughout the Premier League that season.
Later that year, his contract at Old Trafford was extended looking at his abilities on and off the ball. His contract was extended till 2020, with an additional year as an extension available for the club to choose from. For his development and more first-team action, Tim was loaned out to Crystal Palace at the beginning of the 2017/18 season.
At Selhurst Park, he met with his former manager Frank de Boer, who had managed Fosu-Mensah at Ajax. With Crystal Palace, Fosu-Mensah played as a centre-back for most of their games and also played in his favourite right-back spot sometimes. He had a reasonably good season at London and was defensively solid, but didn’t score or assist even once for the Eagles in the entire season.
Fosu-Mensah appeared in a total of 24 games for the Eagles out of which 21 appearances were in the Premier League. Out of a total of 24 games, he played as centre-back in nine games and as a right-back in 13 games. The then 19-year old put out an impressive display and returned to Manchester United as his loan move ended.
In 2018, Fosu-Mensah was again loaned out for a season, to another London club, Fulham FC. His loan move to Fulham turned out to be a nightmare though as he appeared for the club for only 12 times. Injuries and lack of quality and performance limited his time at Craven cottage and April 2019, Fosu-Mensah suffered a ligament injury.
With that, he returned to Manchester United and had his cruciate ligament surgery done, which kept him in the sidelines till January 2020. He trained with United reserves for only three days and then the unthinkable happened as he suffered a knee injury. Although this injury didn’t last long, as Fosu-Mensah returned to training in February.
To get Fosu-Mensah back in the grove Solskjaer played him in the Premier 2. Fosu-Mensah played a couple of games in the Premier League 2 to gain confidence and match fitness and has been training with the first team.
Tim featured for United after a long gap of almost three years in the Premier League game against Crystal Palace. With Shaw and Williams both injured, Solskjaer opted to play Fosu-Mensah at left-back instead of Diogo Dalot. The Dutch put in a shift and didn’t allow Townsend to get past him and kept him quiet throughout the game.
With an FA Cup tie against Chelsea tonight and Shaw still injured and Williams in doubt, Tim might get more game-time. But with only one year left in his contract only time will tell what the future beholds for Timothy Fosu-Mensah.
