When Mason Greenwood left Manchester United last summer over 18 months after being arrested and charged with attempted rape, controlling and coercive behaviour and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, his footballing ability was largely left out of the discussion in the media.
Even though all charges against him had been dropped six months previously and United concluded in their internal investigation that the striker “did not commit the offences in respect of which he was originally charged,” the shocking images and audio that had been seen and heard by large sections of the public weighed too heavily.
Greenwood’s qualities as a striker, his ability to score from impossible angles, his two-footedness, the fact he was United’s youngest goalscorer in European football and potentially worth over £100 million ($126m), were deemed to be of secondary importance.
But in Spain, where Greenwood has rekindled his career on loan at Getafe, the opposite is true. After an initial focus on his past misdemeanours, all talk of the striker’s previous offences has practically disappeared. Instead, there has been a sense of astonishment at how talented he is and a sense of disbelief that Getafe have been able to get him.