Manchester United reportedly may not be in a position to provide many academy debuts this campaign.
The Red Devils pride themselves on using their famed academy and last season Ethan Wheatley became the 250th academy graduate to play a first team game.
Toby Collyer has already made his senior debut this season but there are chances that not many, if any, will join him in this campaign.
One of the reasons new head coach Ruben Amorim was hired was due to his commitment to trusting young players as his squad at Sporting Lisbon was stacked with young talent he put faith in like 17 year old Geovany Quenda, who has been linked to United.
United have signed numerous talented youngsters lately such as Chido Obi, Sekou Kone and most recently Diego Leon, who will arrive in the summer.
What’s more, the under 18s are flying having won every league game they have played this season with talents such as Godwill Kukonki, Jack Fletcher and Gabriele Biancheri.
However, former player Lee Sharpe (via the Manchester Evening News) claims that it will be tough for Amorim to introduce much young talent this season.
“I know they’ve got a couple of forwards who everyone’s raving about and a couple of other players that are just on the fringes of the first team,” he said.
“It’s always important at United. It’s important to have a manager who encourages the youth set-up to come through and give young players a chance. But I’m not sure.”
Sharpe believes that due to Amorim wanting to imprint his new tactics and 3-4-3 formation on the squad, he will likely continue to pick experienced benches.
Fellow former player Dimitar Berbatov also echoed Sharpe’s concerns and stated, “in his first season with the in-depth squad he’s got, looking at the bench, there won’t be too many new faces coming through this season unless, of course, they fit into the system that he wants to play.”
The Bulgarian believes that the fact United have never played his system in the first team or the youth teams means that there won’t be many ready-made academy players set to step up to help the first team squad right now.
“I think the whole group of players – from the Under-16s and Under-18s upwards – all may have to look at changing the way they approach games.”
Featured image Gabriel Kuchta via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
