JJ Gabriel is putting in the work ahead of his anticipated Manchester United senior bow under Michael Carrick
Manchester United youngster JJ Gabriel could have a big part to play in pre-season and is trying to give Michael Carrick no choice but to give him minutes.
The wonderkid, who doesn’t turn 16 until October, will be eligible to play Premier League football next term and has shown a willingness to put in the hard yards as he chases senior minutes even sooner than that.
United manager Carrick will be without a number of senior stars in July thanks to World Cup commitments. The first pre-season friendly will take place in Helsinki on July 18, with Wrexham the opposition.
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Players not travelling to the World Cup will be expected back in training even earlier than that and Gabriel will be among them. The teenager trained with the first team under Carrick and his predecessor Ruben Amorim and a senior bow isn’t thought to be too far away.
Gabriel’s father Joe O’Cearuill shared a number of videos on social media, showing the teenager doing strength and speed work at the gym and on the training ground. “JJ 12min kick ups with tennis ball walk to gym,” the caption read, with one of a collage of four videos showing the kick-ups in question.
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Fans seemed impressed upon watching the footage. “What a player he’s going to be for United, hopefully he will have a statue one day,” one wrote in reply to O’Cearuill’s post.
“I don’t care about the packaging, just work ethic that makes me say this. If he has good people around him who value privacy, he’ll go on to challenge for Ballon d’Or,” wrote another.
Gabriel isn’t the only United academy talent putting in work this summer. Kai Rooney saw his 2025/26 season disrupted by injury but is doing what he can to be ready to get going again next term, sharing a gym photo which indicated he has been adding muscle ahead of pre-season.
Carrick will have plenty of time to watch United’s youngsters in action as he prepares for his first pre-season campaign as manager. The Wrexham friendly is the first of six pre-season games over the course of a month before last season’s third-place finishers kick off their 2026/27 campaign.
None of those six matches will take place at Old Trafford. After the trip to Helsinki there’s an away game against Rosenborg in Norway, followed by matches on neutral territory against Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Leeds United and AC Milan.
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