Are we expecting too much from a team of kids?

It's why signings like Dorgu and then potentially Quenda in the summer worry me a bit. We seem to have entered a who can field the youngest team in the league competition. Amorim has no chance if we go down that route.

We badly need three or four players good players in or about to be in their prime.

But I said in a different thread, United seem determined to get success in a different way to everybody else. We can't just do the obvious things.
 
Marwood said:
It's why signings like Dorgu and then potentially Quenda in the summer worry me a bit. We seem to have entered a who can field the youngest team in the league competition. Amorim has no chance if we go down that route.

We badly need three or four players good players in or about to be in their prime.

But I said in a different thread, United seem determined to get success in a different way to everybody else. We can't just do the obvious things.
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Tbf along with the likes of Yoro and Dorgu, we also signed Zirkzee (23), Ugarte (23), De Ligt (25) and Mazraoui (26) in the summer. However they work out as individual signings, those players really aren't overly young.

It's also not particularly different to a side like City say, who have just spent €243m on six players all aged between 18-25. It's just the age range you mostly expect to buy in when you're rebuilding a side.
 
sullydnl said:
...you're effectively trying to build a team that will peak 4 or 5 years later, not one that solves all your current problems.

But that doesn't mean you can point to those young players as justification for us being where we are.

For example, 8 of Arsenal's 12 most regular starters in the 21/22 league season were 23 or under. And they finished 5th, not 13th.
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Eurgh... :annoyed: A few seasons later they still don't look capable of winning anything at all.

There's developing and peaking together and there's learning to win. Massive difference between the two and somewhat impossible with a spineless team.

Not having a go at Arsenal, just pointing out my concern about the trajectory. I'm optimistic they can get back to competing for CL and that's about it.
 
Its not that they are kids its the fact they cant/wont adapt to what the manager wants. The last few results should have happened in Nov/Dec when Amorim first came in and there should be a noticable improvement now. Instead we are getting worse and two of the shining lights, Mainoo and Garnacho are looking worse. Garnacho cant seem to perform unless he is only played as an impact sub and Mainoo looks half the player he was last season. I know a lot of young and/or new players struggle with 'second season syndrome', so lets hope its that.
Another one that is worse now than last season, Hojlund should have been a £30/40 mill back up striker to an older experienced striker, not a £72 mill main striker that has so many faults to his game at the moment, receiving the ball, movement and positioning.
Yoro, Zirkzee, Collyer and Ugarte have only just arrived, but still no immediate improvement can be seen.
Only Amad seems to have improved slightly with this team.
I just dont know what the answer is, without a massive rebuild the club cant afford, because of the debt the parasites put on the club.
 
It's ironic that over the last 10 years or so, we have signed/held on to too many veterans - we lacked pace and explosivity, had to sign replacements soon after. We still have two veterans in Eriksen and Casemiro, who don't appear up to the required standard any more or don't fit Amorim's system, so it seems clear they will leave sooner rather than later.

The problem really is we don't have many players in their prime years. This is the result of a decade where most of our young signings and academy players haven't progressed, or even deteriorated, and have been moved on or are constantly injured. Rashford, Martial, Van de Beek, Sancho, Greenwood, Antony, Mount, McTominay, Shaw, Lindelof - these players should - given the transfer fee, or promise at a young age - at this point in their careers have become the spine of the team, but for varying reasons that's not the case. These are the age group that should form the spine of the team. We only have Bruno, really. Maguire to an extent but his performances have meant he has been in and out of the team, rather than a stalwart. Dalot is getting to that age, but it's still unclear if he can be more than a squad player. Martinez arguably, but this season has been inconsistent. De Ligt, Ugarte and Mazraoui are the right profile but it's the first season, new system, new manager, new league - all doing reasonably well so far, but not quite (yet) at the level I'd hope for the spine of the team.
 
sullydnl said:
Tbf along with the likes of Yoro and Dorgu, we also signed Zirkzee (23), Ugarte (23), De Ligt (25) and Mazraoui (26) in the summer. However they work out as individual signings, those players really aren't overly young.

It's also not particularly different to a side like City say, who have just spent €243m on six players all aged between 18-25. It's just the age range you mostly expect to buy in when you're rebuilding a side.
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Yeah the summer was an OK mix of ages.(no coincidence the better players this season are those in the 23 to 27 bracket).

But the attacking talent already at the club was very young and now we've signed a 20 year old wingback with limited experience.

So going forwards, this summer, I'd say we have to be careful.

We all agree the wingback positions are crucial in this system. Going into next season with Dorgu and as rumoured Quenda would be incredibly risky.
 
I think the answer is yes probably, but then we should have high expectations at United. It's the club's fault more than anything that the front line in particular is so young and inexperienced.

Really hope the next couple of attacking players we sign are a little bit older. It's why I wasn't than keen on Tel.
 
Lentwood said:
Well I named 8, and 6 of them started the game yesterday

Bear in-mind, Yoro and Mainoo were injured first few months, and Garnacho was dropped due to his attitude...I would expect all three to be regulars when available from now until the end of the season.
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I wouldn’t
The vast majority of the team is experienced the problem is the manager playing out of form
Players out of position
 
Hojlund shouldn’t be leading the line, it’s unfair on him. United have never bought a kid and expected that of them. He isn’t even learning from anyone (top striker). It’s a big ask.

Garnacho is way ahead of the curve at the age of 20 but sometimes we need to remind ourselves that he is still so young!

Mainoo was hyped up so much last season, playing for England.. important for United.. that now the expectation of him is so huge he’s being judged as a fully fledged starter by many. He isn’t.

Yoro is being primed as the future of defending which is surely going to heap pressure on him, aswell as playing at a club like United.


We need to chill on our youth.
 
tenpoless said:
Maybe they can be good in 4 years
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I always remember that post-invincibles Arsenal side that every year was described as young and talented and that the following year would be their year for success and it just never happened. There was just such a lack of leadership in those Arsenal teams- you had the likes of Ramsey, Hleb, Walcott, Wilshere, RVP, Clichy, Sagna, Cesc... but they just never put it together. It used to be laughable how many people thought they'd win the league when the closest they got was 07-08 and they still finished third.
 
Lentwood said:
Slightly off topic...but yeah I have been really impressed with him for the unders, gone under the radar a bit due to his injury problems but looks a top talent
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since he has returened from injury he has been excellent. He is a better prosect in the PL that Kobbie. Kobbie will do well in Spain or Italy
 
I believe when you’re trying to implement a new system and change the culture of the club, young players are more willing to work for it than experienced players. We’ve seen it already with Rashford and Casemiro in particular who are unwilling to change their ways. It’s worth the risk given building up the academy is one area of recruitment in which the club has done well in the last 5 years. I say give more young players a chance .
 
Hester_manc said:
Yes, we expect too much when all our new signings are young talents. They have far too few established players in the squad they can learn from. I guess there's only Bruno and Maguire.

In general, I am extremely tired of the criticism that hits young players like Garnacho, Mainoo and Højlund. All 3 players have already shown their talent, and we should therefore all know that their talent is big enough, but that they can have periods of great instability when they are so young and at the same time do not have many experienced, great players in the squad to lean on. If we had bought Kane, Højlund would have been a more stable and better striker now.
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Do yourself a favor and don’t go in the Mainoo thread. People writing him off already and had already seen it all coming. We have some real Nostradamus’ here at the caf
 
Golden Nugget said:
Do yourself a favor and don’t go in the Mainoo thread. People writing him off already and had already seen it all coming. We have some real Nostradamus’ here at the caf
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Paul Scholes was a few weeks away from 20 when he made his United debut, in a side that had won two PL titles in three seasons and contained Cantona, Keane, Schmeichel, Irwin, Giggs, Bruce, Pallister and Andy Cole.

Mainoo comes in at 18, into a shambles of a side and because he's not absolutely tearing it up every week in a system / position he's never played, he's a bust.
 
Basically, yes.

We have good young players. The problem is that the team is getting virtually nothing from the highly paid older players - Casemiro, Eriksen, Lindelof, Evans, Mount, Rashford, Sancho, Antony, Shaw, and now we can add Martinez to that list.

The summer transfer window needs some serious squad surgery in terms of ins and outs.
 
I think this is a fair observation and points to the absolute disaster our recruitment & squad planning has been over the last 4 years or so.

While we all like to blame the manager, the players or both, the real issue lies in the planning and execution of player recruitment.

Just saw a couple of back to back interviews of Rodri & Mcallister and both pointed to an adaptation period of a year when coming to the PL. This was when both them were slightly more experienced than our recent signings or academy players. To thrust the likes of Mainoo, Garnacho, Hojlund, Yoro, now Dorgu in the starting line up and expect them to perform instantaneously is borderline criminal. It’s not even the manager’s fault as they usually are making a hard choice between selecting a has been / flop and a young starlet. The real damage over the last three years has been the signings of the likes of Antony, Casemiro, Mount, Ronaldo etc.

Ideally, some of our younger players get the development process that Amad has gone through. Not necessarily through loans but through gradual introduction into the first team. That’s not necessarily been the case for many of our younger players. Mainoo for example was fast tracked because Casemiro’s form fell of the cliff, Eriksen lost the last bit of mobility, and Mount was perennially injured. What should have been an introduction with substitute appearances and odd cup starts became a de facto starting X1 place.
 
SirScholes said:
We have, starting on a regular basis, Yoro (18), Garnacho (20), Mainoo (19), Amad (22), Ugarte (23), Hojlund (22 this week). Collyer (20) has started a few games and Dorgu (20) has been signed presumably to start.

6 or 7 is a massive stretch
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Wouldn't say Yoro is a regular.
 
The expectations probably do need to be tempered as a result of the age and inexperience of large swathes of the squad, but I don't think the current expectations are unduly high for this group of players. "Don't get relegated", is pretty much the limit of aspirations of the remainder of this season. Next season, we'll want a few key signings and extra time on the training pitch to push us on a bit, ideally back into the top 6 and some kind of European football in 2026-27, but nobody is expecting this lot to mount a title challenge in the next few seasons.
 
I think it depends on what you expect, if you expect them to do a decent job, enough for mid table then I think that is fine. If you expect them to challenge for top 4, that's insane.

I don't think many expect amazing stuff from them, it's the failure of the basics that worry people.
 
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