Timothy Fosu-Mensah reveals why he decided to leave Manchester United | OneFootball

Timothy Fosu-Mensah has confirmed that the decision to leave Manchester United was his own for the sake of first-team football.

The Dutchman joined the Red Devils’ youth team in 2014 and broke into the first-team in 2016.

He featured sporadically during the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, before being sent on loan to Crystal Palace and Fulham.

The latter being cut short by an ACL injury and returned to Old Trafford but was hardly used by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer thereafter.

This season, the 23-year-old featured in only three matches for United before being sold to Bayer Leverkusen last month.

Fosu-Mensah said that he decided to leave Old Trafford to find more game time. As quoted by Goal.com, he told PA: “It was my decision. The manager was good to me but at the end I was not playing a lot.

“When you are 22, 23, 24-years-old you need to be playing. I didn’t play much and I wanted to. It was the best decision in the end to go somewhere else where I would get more minutes.

“The club and the manager were good to me. I recovered from a big injury, they helped me, gave me minutes – I played in the FA Cup semi-final and the Europa League semi-final.

“But it’s important to play regularly and to get my opportunity in the national team too.

“Ole has been very good to me. I spoke with him because he had a big injury as a player so he knew exactly how I felt. When I played against Crystal Palace (in July) after 16 months out he was very happy for me.

“These were very good moments. He knew I had the quality. I have no bad things to say about him because he has been very good to me.

“But Bayer Leverkusen is a very nice club with tradition, good people and good players.”

With the likes of Aaron wan-Bissaka, Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly in the squad, it would’ve been almost impossible for Fosu-Mensah to get a starting berth this season.

He has made four out of a possible six appearances for Leverkusen and will certainly benefit from a decent amount of game time with the Bundesliga outfit.

The Dutchman will be keen on helping Peter Bosz’s side to Champions League qualification and may even be able to find a spot in Netherlands’ squad for the European Championships this summer.