Man Utd are into the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals and another goal from JJ Gabriel helped Darren Fletcher’s side to a 4-1 victory at Oxford.
20:04, 18 Feb 2026
Once again, it was JJ Gabriel who stole the headlines for Manchester United. The 15-year-old’s smart turn and clever shot from 25 yards put Darren Fletcher’s side on track for the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals in front of the watching first-team head coach Michael Carrick.
Gabriel is proving to be a key figure in this run. He has now scored against Peterborough and Oxford to help United progress to the last eight of the competition and among teammates with much more experience and more physicality, he is proving to be the star of the show.
He cut a diminutive figure in an Oxfordshire downpour during the first half, but on a pitch showing signs of wear and tear from weeks of rain, and a surface that had to pass two pitch inspections at the weekend, he showed the class to rise above the conditions.
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Gabriel wasn’t always in the game, playing just off Chibo Obi as a No.10 in a 4-2-3-1, but he drifted into space across the front line to try and make things happen and his skill in possession and ability to manipulate the ball made him a handful.
That class was on show when he collected the ball 25 yards from goal, threw a defender off the scent with a perfectly balanced feint and then sent his low shot skidding off the wet surface and through the gloves of a diving Harry Jones.
Although Gabriel got his goal, he wasn’t the star of the show on this occasion. Godwill Kukonki was excellent as a marauding left-back, and Obi eventually got his goal after the break, but midfielder Jim Thwaites showed his class in open play and from dead-ball situations.
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Thwaites, 18, showed his set-piece prowess with a direct free-kick against Manchester City at the weekend. He pulled the strings from midfield at the Kassam Stadium, controlling the game for United, but they never looked more dangerous than when he was stood over a dead ball.
His first-half corners alone could have produced four or five goals. Albert Mills did power a header in from the first to open the scoring, but twice Kukonki went close from Thwaites’ out-swingers, as did Obi, while an in-swinger almost went straight in. Jones got a hand to it and then managed to pounce on the loose ball inside his six-yard box.
The midfielder wearing the No.8 and playing like one then showed he can deliver from all angles. A free-kick from the left created another chance late in the first half and one from the right after the break was again on the money, spreading more panic in the Oxford defence.
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Thwaites captained United in that third-round win against Peterborough, but missed the fourth-round success against Derby County with an injury. United missed his controlling presence in a game that was far too open for Fletcher’s liking and went all the way to extra time.
He certainly put in a shift against Oxford. He left the pitch 15 minutes from the end with his white shorts caked in mud, after a second half that turned into more of a battle than expected after Josh Holton had cut the deficit to 3-1.
United were never really threatened, however, and they put the icing on the cake when substitute Noah Ajayi scored a superb individual goal in injury time. From here, they can expect the competition to provide more of a test, and Thwaites’s prowess to cause havoc from set-pieces could be a vital weapon.
He went on the first team’s post-season tour under Ruben Amorim in May 2025, but has yet to have any more first-team football. Carrick, who had made the three-hour journey to Oxford after training at Carrington earlier on Wednesday to be among the 3,500 in the crowd, will surely have been impressed by Thwaites. He knows a midfielder when he sees one.
And at a time when the game is being dominated by set-pieces, the teenager’s ability to land the ball on a dime almost every time will certainly mark him out now.
