Maxi Oyedele returns to Manchester United early from Forest Green Rovers loan move | OneFootball

Manchester United’s Maxi Oyedele has returned to the club early from his loan spell with Forest Green Rovers.

Having only joined the League Two outfit towards the end of January, it came as a surprise when Oyedele was pictured in first-team training last week and subsequently featured in the U21s’ disappointing loss to Derby County.

It is now expected that Oyedele will remain in Manchester and not return to Forest Green Rovers according to reports.

The Daily Mail has reported that “while he has not been officially recalled from that loan, he is not expected to return to Forest Green for the remainder of the season and will instead play for United’s U21s while also intermittently training with the first team.”

It is believed that the club’s thought behind the move is that “his return to training with United is seen as more beneficial than leaving him at Forest Green and gives the club an extra midfielder in first-team training.”

The loan move started off on shaky ground when manager Rovers Troy Deeney was sacked just the day after Oyedele’s move was secured.

As a result, the youngster’s time in Gloucestershire has looked like an uphill battle to convince a new manager who didn’t sign off on his joining.

Oyedele managed only four appearances for his loan club, all of which came from the bench.

The last of which saw him subbed in and back out again against Crawley Town, a painfully bitter blow for any player let alone a teenager.

After the match, Rovers’ new manager Steve Cotterill didn’t mince his words saying “I think that Maxi has to do a lot more to get into the starting lineup. I didn’t feel as though there was enough productivity maybe from him in the second half.”

The 19-year-old has since been left out of all of Rovers’ match-day squads.

All things considered, the move and in some ways his season have turned out disastrous, particularly considering the exceptional loan spell he enjoyed at Altrincham last season.

Instead of building on his progress from last season, Oyedele returned to u21s football for the first half of this season and will now have to settle back to the junior level for the remainder of the season despite it not providing a sufficient challenge for his development.

But the young midfielder will be hoping to at least get some minutes under his belt and take as much advantage as he can from training with Erik ten Hag’s first team ahead of another potential loan next season.