Garnacho's Exit Hints Mirror a Long List of Players Who Forced a Transfer
Garnacho's Exit Hints Mirror a Long List of Players Who Forced a Transfer originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Within the last year, Alejandro Garnacho has shown a striking level of disrespect to the Manchester United hierarchy.
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Three times he's liked social media posts critical of the manager and/or another player. Following the Europa League loss, he openly questioned the team selection. And then in the biggest display of petulance yet he posted a picture of himself on Instagram wearing Marcus Rashford's Aston Villa Shirt.
But Garnacho is far from an outlier when it comes to pushing for a transfer. In the age of Social Media, it's easy to publicly vent frustrations.
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Rashford fueled the situation further by liking Garnacho's post. That came on the back of very public fall-outs with managers Erik Ten hag and Ruben Amorim.
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Meanwhile, in 2023, after only six months at Brighton, Moises Caicedo took to Instagram with a message trying to convince the club to sell him. He was banned from the club's training ground for a month...but eventually got his way and sealed a record-breaking move to Chelsea.
One Strike and You're Out
There's a star studded list of players who have taken the most extreme action - refusing to play - and it usually works.
Whilst at Chelsea, Thibault Courtois simply refused to show up to pre-season training, leaving the club little choice but to cash in and allow the goalkeeper to secure the move to Real Madrid that he craved.
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In his desire to leave Leicester, with whom he had recently won the EPL, Riyad Mahrez went on strike not once, but twice until the club eventually relented and sold him to Manchester City where he added trophies galore to his collection.
The list goes on...Matheus Nunez, Dimitri Payet, Luis Suarez, Laurent Koscielny, Marcos Tojo, William Gallas are among the others that either refused to play or in some cases even train. All rode bad press train for a while but eventually got the moves they craved.
Kane and Unable
It's not without risk with the most high profile example being Harry Kane. When Manchester City revealed their interest in Kane in 2021, the striker failed to show up for Spurs pre-season tour to try and force the move. But Chairman Daniel Levy stood firm and it would be another two years before he finally departed. By that time City had signed Haaland; Kane later left for Bayern Munich and missed out on the domestic silverware he had hoped for.
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Related: Bruno Fernandes Told to Deliver Brutal Punishment to Alejandro Garnacho After Infamous Marcus Rashford Tribute
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 25, 2025, where it first appeared.
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