It was around the time eight-year-old twins Jack and Tyler Fletcher were deciding their immediate future would be best served down the road from the club at which their famous father, Darren, won five Premier League titles and the Champions League that one of Manchester United’s youth teams found themselves on Sky Sports’ yellow ticker tape for the wrong reasons.
A 9-0 hammering by Manchester City’s Under-15s in November 2016 attracted national attention and was held up as another example of how those noisy neighbours were not just showing up their rivals at first-team level.
Speak to people at United these days and they are honest enough to admit that a stale, old-fashioned set-up in desperate need of modernisation on a number of levels had become something of an anchor for the academy back then.
Much has changed in the seven years since that thrashing and the gap to City at youth level that was widening at a worrying rate has reduced, even if there is plenty of work still to do.
But even that game, coming as it did at a difficult time for United’s academy, serves as a reminder that too much credence should not always be attached to a one-off result between 14 and 15-year-old boys, all the more so when some are playing up a year and it is not uncommon for smaller, more technical talents to be physically overpowered at that age.
Four of those lads who had been humiliated by City would go on to make Premier League appearances, including Anthony Elanga and Teden Mengi – now at Nottingham Forest and Luton respectively – not to mention that one, great disappointment, Mason Greenwood.
Will Fish is impressing on loan at Hibernian from United while others are forging league careers elsewhere, such as Mark Helm at Burton Albion and Cardiff’s Ollie Denham, who was called up to the senior Wales squad last year. Their United coach at that time, Neil Wood, is now the manager of League Two club Salford City.
Still, United had to raise their game across the board and, if their academy was still being run now like it was when the Fletcher twins decided City offered a superior experience, it is very doubtful they would have swapped blue for red this summer.
It would be easy to think they moved simply because their dad is technical director at United and has a huge input into the academy but Darren, ultimately, took a back seat during the process and was clear from the outset that he would not be dictating to his 16-year-old sons what they had to do. Equally, the efforts made to sign them for a fee of £1.25 million was made only because United’s recruitment team resolved after countless hours scouting boys up and down the country that they were the best players and best fit for what they needed in an increasingly in-demand age category.
“At the same time there was the appropriate due diligence in terms of what it would mean for the boys to come in and effectively be in the shadow of their dad,” one source said. “But they weren’t bothered one bit. They were like: ‘We’re not a—d, we’re good players and we absolutely back ourselves”.
At the derby at Old Trafford on Sunday, City supporters will be asked to join their United counterparts in a minute’s applause for Sir Bobby Charlton, who sadly passed away at the weekend aged 86.
Few, if any, academy graduates came to better symbolise what United stood for on and off the pitch and Erik ten Hag, for one, has not been afraid to remind his people this week that it against the unrelenting standards set by the likes of Charlton that the team and club is and will always be judged.
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***Full story:***
It was around the time eight-year-old twins Jack and Tyler Fletcher were deciding their immediate future would be best served down the road from the club at which their famous father, Darren, won five Premier League titles and the Champions League that one of Manchester United’s youth teams found themselves on Sky Sports’ yellow ticker tape for the wrong reasons.
A 9-0 hammering by Manchester City’s Under-15s in November 2016 attracted national attention and was held up as another example of how those noisy neighbours were not just showing up their rivals at first-team level.
Speak to people at United these days and they are honest enough to admit that a stale, old-fashioned set-up in desperate need of modernisation on a number of levels had become something of an anchor for the academy back then.
Much has changed in the seven years since that thrashing and the gap to City at youth level that was widening at a worrying rate has reduced, even if there is plenty of work still to do.
But even that game, coming as it did at a difficult time for United’s academy, serves as a reminder that too much credence should not always be attached to a one-off result between 14 and 15-year-old boys, all the more so when some are playing up a year and it is not uncommon for smaller, more technical talents to be physically overpowered at that age.
Four of those lads who had been humiliated by City would go on to make Premier League appearances, including Anthony Elanga and Teden Mengi – now at Nottingham Forest and Luton respectively – not to mention that one, great disappointment, Mason Greenwood.
Will Fish is impressing on loan at Hibernian from United while others are forging league careers elsewhere, such as Mark Helm at Burton Albion and Cardiff’s Ollie Denham, who was called up to the senior Wales squad last year. Their United coach at that time, Neil Wood, is now the manager of League Two club Salford City.
Still, United had to raise their game across the board and, if their academy was still being run now like it was when the Fletcher twins decided City offered a superior experience, it is very doubtful they would have swapped blue for red this summer.
It would be easy to think they moved simply because their dad is technical director at United and has a huge input into the academy but Darren, ultimately, took a back seat during the process and was clear from the outset that he would not be dictating to his 16-year-old sons what they had to do. Equally, the efforts made to sign them for a fee of £1.25 million was made only because United’s recruitment team resolved after countless hours scouting boys up and down the country that they were the best players and best fit for what they needed in an increasingly in-demand age category.
“At the same time there was the appropriate due diligence in terms of what it would mean for the boys to come in and effectively be in the shadow of their dad,” one source said. “But they weren’t bothered one bit. They were like: ‘We’re not a—d, we’re good players and we absolutely back ourselves”.
At the derby at Old Trafford on Sunday, City supporters will be asked to join their United counterparts in a minute’s applause for Sir Bobby Charlton, who sadly passed away at the weekend aged 86.
Few, if any, academy graduates came to better symbolise what United stood for on and off the pitch and Erik ten Hag, for one, has not been afraid to remind his people this week that it against the unrelenting standards set by the likes of Charlton that the team and club is and will always be judged.
I ain’t reading allat.
Good article, thanks