A bit more on Manchester United's prospects this season based on an interesting news article I found today. Hopefully the copy/paste/translate spammers haven't already covered this one and slapped a d(on't)like link at the bottom of the post. Yeah, screw you guys.
I don't check in on the football news everyday, which I see as a good thing or else i'd have read tens of articles about Harry Maguire's transfer situation. He wants to leave / The price is too high / Other clubs are interested. That's great, but just tell me when he's moved somewhere and stop wasting my time. As an aside, I wonder how much SPORTS has been accrued on his transfer speculation alone?!
Anyway, the article which is a little break from the norm relates to the amount of minutes Manchester United's youth players or 'academy graduates' played in the first team last year:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49156788
According to the research carried out by PA Sport:
Manchester United's academy graduates played more than 27,000 minutes during the 2018-19 Premier League season - almost 10,000 more than any other club.
In total there were 20 Man United graduates playing in the top flight last season, Southampton were 2nd with 16 graduates playing somewhere in the league, and Spurs were 3rd with 13.
I think one of the interesting points made in the article was that 'a 3rd of those 27,000 minutes were accumulated by players still at the club'. Which considering the money the club has spent in the last four or five years (or 20!), just shows how reliant or keen Solskjaer is on the younger players.
I've written in the past about how tricky a season this could be for Ole Gunnar and also more recently on Alex Ferguson's fledglings making Alan Hansen eat his own words and so it is to me, an interesting time for the club for a few reasons.
Back when Ole Solskjaer hung up his boots after a pretty fine career playing for Man U, he went on to coach the strikers and then the reserve team for a few years before taking up the managers position with Molde in 2010. During this time he was working with some of the players who are available in his first team squad today.
It has been speculated that 'one of the Norwegian's remits as caretaker coach was to escalate the development of the younger players' 1 and so with a track record at the club working with ex youth and reserve players, you would hope that this experience could put him in good stead.
And of course it could completely backfire as Man Utd fail to capture any big names and attempt to rely on players who's hearts are no longer at the club.
I'll be listening out for any pundits suggesting 'youth wont win you trophies' - or something like that anyway, before deciding if a trip to the bookmakers is required.
Cheers
Asher