Miscellaneous Reserve/Youth News

I'm guessing that means we don't have a game this weekend. Are the u23s playing tomorrow night?
 
United U15s (2004 group) is playing in the 5-a-aside MTU Hallencup again this year.

Live stream:



Squad: 1.Hanbury 2.Barugh 3.Brown 4.Kavanagh 5.Kilner 6.Lindsay 7.Mather 8.Murray 9.Nkwonta 10.Popov

Lost 0-2 vs. Barca in the first game and won 7-0 vs. TuS Immenstaad in the second game.

Most of the squad are late 2004 born (U14s). Kilner and Nkwonta are U15s.
 
backofthenet said:
14!!!! Bloody hell. Last time I saw a video of him he was even smaller than Gomes. Perfect game for him to travel as well considering we've already qualified.
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When Howson used to post on here he mentioned he was very highly rated, although obviously didn't want to go into too much detail due to his age.
 
Had hopes that including two mentioned above will cause participation of Chong, Greenwood and Garner in 1st team game. But no Chong amongst today trainees.
 
Class of 63 said:
Let's hope he's as lucky as Tahith Chong who seemed to come back quicker and stronger after a similar injury.
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Yeah, hope the best for the lad. Never nice hearing about such serious injuries to young players, but the Chong case does give me some confidence that he will be in good hands and will be back to his best.
 
Class of 63 said:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...t-Mirren-half-way-season-long-loan-spell.html

Strange, unless the club has already agreed a January sale with another club.
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St Mirren appointed a new manager on the 7th of September. Willock started 4 League matches under the previous manager and 3 out of 14 since the change. I'm guessing both Willock and St Mirren were content with the loan coming to an early end. The wages St Mirren pay their players appear to be about £30K to £40K per season (United will have been paying most of Willock's wages) so probably not high up on his list for next season. There are a lot of Leagues across Europe that offer better salaries than that.

I'm still bewildered that United offered Willock a 2 year deal when he was almost 21.
 
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kundalini said:
St Mirren appointed a new manager on the 7th of September. Willock started 4 League matches under the previous manager and 3 out of 14 since the change. I'm guessing both Willock and St Mirren were content with the loan coming to an early end. The wages St Mirren pay their players appear to be about £30K to £40K per season (United will have been paying most of Willock's wages) so probably not high up on his list for next season. There are a lot of Leagues across Europe that offer better salaries than that.

I'm still bewildered that United offered Willock a 2 year deal when he was almost 21.
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Why, i'd imagine that's the norm. The club(any club) would only let him run down his contract if there had been no interest in the player.
 
Class of 63 said:
You don't spend 6½ years at Manchester United football club if you are as you put it complete shite, he might not be your cup of tea but....
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And how many did Devonte Redmond spend, 15? He's sitting on his ass now without a club because he's a fecking shit footballer. So is Willock, so are countless others to play for our academy. We've signed Josh Doughty for Christ sakes who is even shit for Canadian standards.

Has nothing to do with my cup of tea. Willock was a below average youth player who couldn't get a game in the Netherlands and been a shit squad player for bottom SPL clubs. He'll be lucky to make it in the football league because he's a footballer who outside of a decent touch does feck all on the pitch. He's shit and there was no reason to give him a new contract.

You don't offer contracts to every 20 year old who spent some time in a PL academy.
 
Class of 63 said:
Why, i'd imagine that's the norm. The club(any club) would only let him run down his contract if there had been no interest in the player.
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You may know far more than me about the reality of loan deals, whether loan fees are involved, how much United end up subsidising wages, how much players like Willock get paid etc. My sense is that on average, this type of situation, a player with no first team experience and no Championship experience on loan by the time they turn 21, isn't likely to bring in much money when they eventually depart the club. There are some exceptions, United earned £1m from Ashley Fletcher's move to West Ham, largely due to his success on loan in League One. We also earned £500K for selling Sean Goss to QPR without any loan experience. But much of time, a player with a Willock type track-record, will eventually leave for free.

I do have a list of the age at which players first went out on loan, and their age when they left the club, but I don't have an idea of how long they had left on their United contract, in those instances in which they were sold rather than released.
 
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Not every Academy player will make it and clearly some don't progress for a variety of reasons.

Having said that, if you are in our Academy then you have a 35% of having a career in the game.

70% go on to playing first team football in some capacity even if it's just momentary.

That's still a very high conversion rate...unfortunately there will always be that bottom 30% who just aren't good enough. Some are given second chances like McTominay and Lingard due to size...others are recovering from injuries and others have that 'something' that coaches see and we don't. There are a few lads which we all watch and know will never make it...people above talking about Willock, Redmond and others...but United are very good at not just dumping them.

Often loans don't work but it's better than nothing for many.

Maybe United could be tougher at that level with releasing players earlier but there is enough criticism levelled at professional Academies already for how they treat players.

I don't think there is a perfect system, we will get it wrong from time to time...but our Academy is still the best around in terms of getting kids through the system.
 
limerickcitykid said:
And how many did Devonte Redmond spend, 15? He's sitting on his ass now without a club because he's a fecking shit footballer. So is Willock, so are countless others to play for our academy. We've signed Josh Doughty for Christ sakes who is even shit for Canadian standards.

Has nothing to do with my cup of tea. Willock was a below average youth player who couldn't get a game in the Netherlands and been a shit squad player for bottom SPL clubs. He'll be lucky to make it in the football league because he's a footballer who outside of a decent touch does feck all on the pitch. He's shit and there was no reason to give him a new contract.

You don't offer contracts to every 20 year old who spent some time in a PL academy.
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The club indentify a very small number of exceptional talent in each age group, but these lads need a team to play in. Therefore the club need to bring in other good players for these lads to play with, the club know these lads will never be good enough, to top this up they will also take a number of punts on players who show promise. It’s unreasonable to expect every academy player to be good enough, it’s a team game, but they're looking for individuals.
 
Tbf Redmond and Willocks's progress had been terrible, to top the fact that they weren't exceptional at the first place. Willock's raw talent is enough to be in better position than he's at right now.
 
Beaucoup said:
The club indentify a very small number of exceptional talent in each age group, but these lads need a team to play in. Therefore the club need to bring in other good players for these lads to play with, the club know these lads will never be good enough, to top this up they will also take a number of punts on players who show promise. It’s unreasonable to expect every academy player to be good enough, it’s a team game, but they're looking for individuals.
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I fully agree, but it has nothing to do with what I've said. The point is it isn't the norm to offer these guys making up the numbers a two year contract when they are 21. They are a required necessity during their youth years but It makes no sense to be offering them contracts until they are 23 when they are as shit as the likes of Willock and have zero chance of fetching a meaningful transfer fee if one at all. Nor did he suffer from major injuries that we were helping him recover from.
 
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Class of 63 said:
Why, i'd imagine that's the norm. The club(any club) would only let him run down his contract if there had been no interest in the player.
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Joe Rothwell was released aged 21 years 6 months. He joined Oxford in League One. He had a couple of loan spells before leaving.

Joe Riley was released aged 21 years 6 months. He joined Bradford in League One. He had a couple of appearances in our first team and a small number of appearances on loan for Sheff United.

Devonte Redmond was released aged 21 years 9 months. He had an unsuccessful League One loan. Last time I looked, he was without a club.

Charlie Scott perhaps doesn't belong in the same category, as he made far fewer U23 starts. Anyway, he was released aged 20 years 10 months. I read that he joined Non League Altrincham recently.

Matty Willock will be 22 years 10 months at the end of June 2019.

Josh Harrop left aged 21 years 6 months to join Preston in the Championship but had an offer from United so we got £500K compensation (His PL start and goal may have influenced this figure). No idea how many years we offered him.

Pearson, Weir, Larnell Cole and Goss were sold around the time they turned 21, but I don't know how long they had left on their current contract or whether United were prepared to extend. Of those four, only Weir left in the summer, so the others might have had 6 months left.

The closest situations to Matty Willock's 2 year deal that I can see are Tom Thorpe, who left aged 22 years 6 months and Donald Love who was sold to Sunderland aged 21 years 8 months, so his United deal must have taken him at least up to 22 years 8 months. Love got some first team experience under LVG so not a great comparison.
 
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Does anyone know about the terms of the loan deals for Mitchell, TFM and Tunzebe?

I'd be minded to bring these lads back in January to support a clear out of squad players who arn't at the required grade (starting with Rojo, Valencia, Jones and Darmian). Not sure if we have the 'recall option' or if they are signed up until the end of the season?
 
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