Miscellaneous Reserve/Youth News

Bendito Mantato starts for England U16s against Italy this afternoon, Amir Ibragimov on the bench.

The quality in the England youth system is very impressive at the moment. Not so long ago, Ibragimov would have either been the talisman at that level, or possibly pushed up to U18 or something already. And that with the England coaches and United's academy generally not getting on back then too.
 
That's good news for them.

Surprised there's youth internationals going on though as the U18's (and maybe younger?) have games this weekend that the likes of Mantato and Ibragimov would probably have been involved in - there normally seems a break for international weekends.

Do any of the other age groups have internationals as well or is it just the U16's?

U15/U16 games don't really follow the international break like other age groups do. They pretty much have games whenever.
 
Ibragimov comes off the bench to score. 2-1 to England after 70 minutes.
 
It's interesting to note that Mantato was the only LB (if you want to call him one) called up to the squad & started both games. Doesn't happen very often, they almost always rotate in these non-competitive games.
 
We’ll see if he makes it to the matchday squad, hope he does. Personally think Aljofree and Kingdon have more potential, especially in possession.
 
We’ll see if he makes it to the matchday squad, hope he does. Personally think Aljofree and Kingdon have more potential, especially in possession.

Also thought so. Perhaps he was preferred because they were involved with the u-21 game today
 
Also thought so. Perhaps he was preferred because they were involved with the u-21 game today

Yeah for sure but it was obviously someone’s decision to play those two instead of having one of them on the bench tomorrow. I’d like be comfortable in saying that we won’t probably need to sub the young CB in, but I’m also losing track of who’s fit and who’s not.
 
We’ll see if he makes it to the matchday squad, hope he does. Personally think Aljofree and Kingdon have more potential, especially in possession.
Not like the first team have any other CBs available. Maguire is the most fit and he's only trained once this week.
 
Not like the first team have any other CBs available. Maguire is the most fit and he's only trained once this week.

Yeah unfortunately the CB situation is horrible. Still I’m surprised they went with Jackson instead of those two I mentioned. With our luck Maguire gets injured in the first half and then it’s Casemiro & Jackson at the back.
 
15-year old Wes Okoduwa is on the Wolves bench tonight. We’ve been linked with him quite a lot this year.
 
Sonny Aljofree is on loan, he isn't eligible to play for the first team.

Remember when I said it was a pointless loan and someone defended it. I have said it before and I say it again, the 'loan manager' is the worst guy in the whole organisation. It should be impossible to be so bad at a job. I can only imagine that Aljofree is very pleased with his loan deal!
 
If he's anywhere close to the talent that Odegaard was, then sign him up. Even FM thinks he is a world class talent. Surely they can't be wrong about a players potential. :wenger:
 
Three assists in three UECL qualifiying matches, two assists in four Eliteserien matches, one goal + one assist in four U19 Euros qualifiers for Norway.
 
I'm by no means an authority on Norwegian football (or football in general, if we're being honest), but these Ødegaard comparisons seem a bit off the mark as Nypan doesn't boast that caliber of close control, balance, overall technique, depth of play (yet!) or spidey senses? Paquetá might be a more approriate reference point if he continues on an upward trajectory, and when you think about it, that's also the profile of playmaker we could do with at First Team level (particularly if Wilcox's rumored “game model” is progressively adopted over the coming seasons) — someone who offers the versatility to operate as a mezzala of sorts (creative but adequately controlled in possession, press-resistant and mobile, reasonably good ball-carring nous, comfortable through the half-spaces) rather than a largely centrally-oriented, somewhat orthodox No. 10.
 
Why would a 17 year old talent (not supertalent) join United, when he is already playing first-team football ? He is not good enough to play for United now - but he wont develop playing for our U21s. If we couldn't find a way to give Isak H Aaroen a start when he left us at 19, we probably wont give Nypan a chance for at least a couple of years.

As for comparing to Ødegaard - that is ridiculous because he was so skilled on the ball that he could play first-team football at 15 despite not being physically ready for it. Nypan is not at that level at all
 
Haven’t created a separate thread for the U18s match as it isn’t shown live due to the first team coverage being so close timewise. Despite the official twitter saying MUTV has live coverage it’s not showing on the MUTV schedule. So who the feck knows.

Anyway, a young starting XI vs Sunderland:



U18s debut for Dante Plunkett, nice to see Kukonki on the bench too. Lacey in the first team squad..? :nervous: Only four subs so I wonder if someone was meant to be there but suffered a late injury or something.

Edit: The official twitter now saying they only have updates on the app, as expected.

Edit 2: Neithan Barbosa is also there as a sub on the official Premier League website.
 
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Haven’t created a separate thread for the U18s match as it isn’t shown live due to the first team coverage being so close timewise. Despite the official twitter saying MUTV has live coverage it’s not showing on the MUTV schedule. So who the feck knows.

Anyway, a young starting XI vs Sunderland:



U18s debut for Dante Plunkett, nice to see Kukonki on the bench too. Lacey in the first team squad..? :nervous:

Edit: The official twitter now saying they only have updates on the app, as expected.

That's frustrating. I was hoping it was being shown as i wanted to get to see a lot of the younger players who'll be in the U18's next season.

They normally kick off at 11am for the U18's - that would have given them time to show both I'd have thought. I wonder why this one is kicking off much later just when we have a rare Saturday 3pm first team game!?
 
That's frustrating. I was hoping it was being shown as i wanted to get to see a lot of the younger players who'll be in the U18's next season.

They normally kick off at 11am for the U18's - that would have given them time to show both I'd have thought. I wonder why this one is kicking off much later just when we have a rare Saturday 3pm first team game!?

Yeah I understand that they're not able to show it as the first team coverage starts about an hour prior to kickoff and MUTV has more or less everyone at OT. It's just weird how many mistakes the social media team does regarding these. Surely they knew an hour ago that they were not showing this live.

Who knows, there could be plenty of reasons behind the late kickoff time. Away team travel logistics etc.
 
Why would a 17 year old talent (not supertalent) join United, when he is already playing first-team football ? He is not good enough to play for United now - but he wont develop playing for our U21s. If we couldn't find a way to give Isak H Aaroen a start when he left us at 19, we probably wont give Nypan a chance for at least a couple of years.

As for comparing to Ødegaard - that is ridiculous because he was so skilled on the ball that he could play first-team football at 15 despite not being physically ready for it. Nypan is not at that level at all
Why would a talent not join the club most famous for developing talent, most famous for bringing youth from reserves to the first team? Would would a youth want to join that setup you ask?
 
Why would a talent not join the club most famous for developing talent, most famous for bringing youth from reserves to the first team? Would would a youth want to join that setup you ask?

Let me answer your question with a question ? What do you think will be best for his development over the next 2.5 seasons, playing regularly in Norway - or playing U21 football for United ?
 
Let me answer your question with a question ? What do you think will be best for his development over the next 2.5 seasons, playing regularly in Norway - or playing U21 football for United ?
Training with the first team at United. If you're starting as a teenager in the domestic league in the Nordics there's not much more progress to be made. The next level is the mental step up. Moving away from your comfort zone and challenging yourself.
 
HT 1-1

Judging by the PL live commentary we’ve had more chances than Sunderland. Mantato booked, two yellow cards for the visitors.