Former Arsenal academy forward Chido Obi has seemingly expressed his displeasure at his current situation at Manchester United through changes to his social media profiles.
Fans have spotted recent changes to Chido Obi’s Instagram profile, which previously contained a profile picture of the player alongside Ruben Amorim, and Manchester United’s Instagram handle in its bio.
The reference to Manchester United has now been removed from the player’s profile, and the profile picture has been changed to one that only shows Obi, not Amorim.
Though Obi’s profile still contains many images of himself in a Manchester United shirt (including the new profile picture), there’s certainly a suggestion of displeasure from the young striker.
It’s not hard to see why Obi might be upset at his current circumstances, even if it seems he’s mostly been the victim of misfortune rather than mismanagement.
Though Obi arrived with a relatively poor crop of attackers ahead of him at United, allowing him to quickly make his first-team debut, the club have looked to address that situation by spending around £200m on three new signings.
Benjamin Sesko is likely to become United’s starting centre-forward, but he’s not the only option. Fellow summer signings Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo can both play up front, and Joshua Zirkzee remains at the club.
Although Rasmus Hojlund appears set to leave for Napoli, the result is that Obi hasn’t even featured in the squad for United’s first team this season, let alone on the pitch.
Most notably, the 17-year-old was excluded as United played against Grimsby Town in the League Cup on Wednesday.
The problem is that the situation doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. Sesko is 22, Zirkzee is 24, and even Cunha and Mbeumo are only 26. All four could be around for many years to come.
With United losing to Grimsby, any chance of League Cup involvement for Obi in 2025/26 is over. The FA Cup doesn’t kick off for United until January, and they have no European football this season.
After getting a taste of first-team football with United last year, Obi now appears set to return to the u21s on a regular basis. That’s where he’s played all his minutes so far this month.
At least on that front, Obi has some big games coming up to help him make an impression. The United u21s face Manchester City on Sunday, then Liverpool in their first game after the international break.
But the striker may well now be looking over his shoulder at his old teammates at Arsenal, watching Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly, and Max Dowman playing for the first team. And he might reasonably wonder what might have been.