The 15-year-old Man Utd prodigy still too young to play senior football
Manchester United's fans won't have a chance to see JJ Gabriel in Premier League action at Old Trafford this season, so a good proportion of the 2,516 who saw him feature in the 3-2 FA Youth Cup win over Sunderland made sure they got their selfies. As he only celebrated his 15th birthday in October, Gabriel currently falls foul of the Premier League regulation that players must be 15 by 31 August of the season in question to be allowed to play. In other words, they have to be in Year 11 at school.
Despite being a Year 10 in school terms and, physically, much smaller than the vast majority of the players he is playing with and against, he still tends to stand out. The victory against Sunderland that earned United an Old Trafford semi-final with Crystal Palace, who they also meet in the Premier League Under-18 Cup final at Selhurst Park next month, wasn't his best performance. But he still produced a couple of magical moments.
There was the first-time lay-off to Chido Obi in the first half that really should have led to United going in front. There was the perfectly weighted pass to Junior Brown that was smashed home superbly for the winner. More thrillingly, there was the dazzling two-footed manoeuvre that took him into a shooting position at the end of the game.
That's why those fans were after their selfies at the end. It is why Gabriel's name was cheered the loudest when it was read out just before kick-off. Youth coaches are notoriously reluctant to single out individual players for assessment.
They know only too well the pressure they can place on youngsters who have so much growing up and so much development ahead of them. But, just as with Arsenal's Max Dowman - the 16-year-old who last weekend became the Premier League's youngest ever scorer - for Gabriel there is no escaping attention. In August, he was in the directors' box with his family for the league opener against Arsenal.