Former Manchester United man Ben Thornley has sympathised with Angel Gomes’ situation at the club and believes he must consider leaving the club in search of first-team football.

Gomes is highly regarded by United and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer recently admitted he hopes the 19-year-old follows in the footsteps of Tahith Chong in signing a contract extension with the Reds.

The playmaker has been linked with both Chelsea and Barcelona due to the uncertainty over his long-term future at Old Trafford.

Gomes’ contract is set to expire at the end of the season meaning he could move on a free transfer though United would be owed compensation due to his age.

Thornley believes that opting to leave the club he’s been at since 2006 would be an extremely tough decision. However, he feels Gomes must give it serious consideration as he needs first-team football.

“I can understand what a predicament Angel Gomes is in. It was exactly the same sort of thing that I found myself in at Manchester United,” he told Tribal Football.

“Now with the age that he is and the talented player that he is, his services may better served going somewhere else altogether, because even after he has a loan spell come to an end, whether it be six months or 12 months, there is no guarantee that he is going to be considered for a regular place in Manchester United’s first-team, and that is probably more of a decision for Angel to make than Tahith Chong.

“Angel’s probably thinking to himself, I’m in my early 20s now, I need to think about which path my career wants to go down, as difficult and as much of a wrench it ever would be to leave Manchester United.

“It is a decision that I had to make. I was a little bit older when I did it, I was 23, albeit having had a career-threatening injury, but I knew at 23 that I wasn’t going to be a regular member of Manchester United’s first-team and I wanted to go in search of first-team football and that might be the path that Angel might have to go down.

“But again, it is difficult when you have to make a decision to leave a club like Manchester United, but for the benefit of his own career I think it might be something that he needs to consider a little bit more strongly than Chong.”