Rosenborg vs Manchester United (Mon 15th July, 17:00 UK time)

This remind me of competition where U-21 teams play against EFL teams. Usually the U-21's get found out when playing against seasoned professionals.

Yeah, when you bare in mind that the majority of our U21s and U18s end up playing lower league football, if that, its expected that they would struggle against a Rosenborg team already deep into their season.

Shows how difficult the step up into our first team is and why you have to be pretty talented to break through. Apart from Amas none of these players are really talked up as Mainoo level prospects.
 
Not one single young lad is ready for first team football. Even Rashford still shouldn’t be getting first team football
 
I think you're taking the piss a bit if you think any of them except Fernandez were particularly hyped, Williams maybe a bit but most recognised he'd need a serious improvement to make it at United

I dunno, I'm thinking relative to their peers they got way more hype from United fans who watch reserve games/pre season games. Blackett definitely had a lot of hype as did the likes of Varela/Vermijl.

It seems we always do it more for centre mids and full backs than other positions.
 
Only a pre-season game to give the kids a run out I know, but feck me Rashford still looks atrocious. He's fallen off a cliff.
 
Ennis looks good. Never heard of him. Not highly rated in the youth set up?

He came in with a big rep having scored lots of goals for the under 18s at Liverpool. Played in our under 21s and was okay, scored some goals but didnt look very impressive technically and is often looking down and a bit selfish going it alone. He can score a goal sometimes though. Then he got injured, came back and looks a bit more physical - stronger and more robust. But still the same weaknesses. Today we saw more of it, he could run and dribble, he pressed and won the ball, a decent long shot due to the power but also times when he just needed to play an easy pass and he was selfish.

In the 2nd half he was still our best player going forward, but slim pickings
 
Not sure we gained anything from that, don't think we should be playing teams midway through their season again, at least not for our first pre-season game, they were so far ahead of us. We only created 2 chances.
Definitely a baptism of fire, especially that second half. Guess it’s just more minutes in the legs
 
Terrible performance bar Vitek and some of Collyers involvement. Created nothing and struggled to defend. Such a 2023/24 performance continuation, will be on the sack watch if the players don't start looking like they know what our tactics actually are?
 
He came in with a big rep having scored lots of goals for the under 18s at Liverpool. Played in our under 21s and was okay, scored some goals but didnt look very impressive technically and is often looking down and a bit selfish going it alone. He can score a goal sometimes though. Then he got injured, came back and looks a bit more physical - stronger and more robust. But still the same weaknesses. Today we saw more of it, he could run and dribble, he pressed and won the ball, a decent long shot due to the power but also times when he just needed to play an easy pass and he was selfish.

In the 2nd half he was still our best player going forward, but slim pickings
Thanks, good analysis. Decent prospect then.
 
it was important not to get blown away in the first leg. early goal back at old trafford and it’s a different tie.
 
Disgraceful and unacceptable performance.
If this was CM 02, I would click “release player” and send all these kids packing.
Yamal is younger than all of them, its not good enough, folks, we’re in different time now, this isn’t the 90’s, 16 is the new 19, and 19 is the new 22.

Vitek was wonderful, should be playing cups ahead of the Turkish fella.
How do you even concede 22 shots on target against literal farmers?

My day is ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable.
 
... When's the international break?
 
I dunno, I'm thinking relative to their peers they got way more hype from United fans who watch reserve games/pre season games. Blackett definitely had a lot of hype as did the likes of Varela/Vermijl.

It seems we always do it more for centre mids and full backs than other positions.

Blackett was hyped more for the fact he was picked at a young age at CB for us by our first team manager
 
He came in with a big rep having scored lots of goals for the under 18s at Liverpool. Played in our under 21s and was okay, scored some goals but didnt look very impressive technically and is often looking down and a bit selfish going it alone. He can score a goal sometimes though. Then he got injured, came back and looks a bit more physical - stronger and more robust. But still the same weaknesses. Today we saw more of it, he could run and dribble, he pressed and won the ball, a decent long shot due to the power but also times when he just needed to play an easy pass and he was selfish.

In the 2nd half he was still our best player going forward, but slim pickings
He didn't play for our U21s before his injury. He scored 10 in 19 for the U18s with 3 assists pre-injury. He's only played 280' odd minutes for the U21s in his career and they all came this season.
 
should hurry up the first team players who shouldn't be on holiday back. The kids were an eyesore. I did not see any sort of sparkle with any of them.
 
In what way? He's run backwards for the team to help defend. But he's also given away freekicks, given away corners when didnt need to and at one point did a step over in left back position before he gave the ball away. We've struggled to play the ball out of the back and he's been part of that

In the way he finds good spaces to take the ball off the keeper or centre backs, plays simple passes and then moves into pockets to receive the ball back.

I wasn’t expecting perfection in the first game of preseason, but I saw movement from him that we don’t see in players far more senior in the squad.
 
Not very interesting to watch. Basically the U21 squad with a few first team players. Hopefully more players from 1st team will play on Saturday.
 
In the way he finds good spaces to take the ball off the keeper or centre backs, plays simple passes and then moves into pockets to receive the ball back.

I wasn’t expecting perfection in the first game of preseason, but I saw movement from him that we don’t see in players far more senior in the squad.

Yeah he did have a good attitude running back to work for the team. Although thats obviously also the responsibility of the player playing as a 6 so of course hes going to do more of it than others.

He just wasnt very good at it when the ball came to him and some poor outcomes from his challenges and involvements.
 
Yeah he did have a good attitude running back to work for the team. Although thats obviously also the responsibility of the player playing as a 6 so of course hes going to do more of it than others.

He just wasnt very good at it when the ball came to him and some poor outcomes from his challenges and involvements.

I think he had far more good touches with the ball than bad ones. Yes he had a couple of poor touches and possession losses - but so did everybody else and it’s always going to happen with zero match sharpness after a break.
 
It's hard to judge young players in a game like this. Rosenborg are the much sharper team, we're playing makeshift lineups. First time some of these lads have gone up against senior professionals too.
You're correct. It was a good run out against a Rosenborg team who are much fitter and sharper due to being half way through their domestic season. It was a good test as far as improving ourselves from a stamina and fitness perspective. And in games like these it's about seeing who shows up from the younger players and I thought Vitek played well along with Toby Collyer who again demonstrated the ability to receive passes on the half turn which is a very important trait against teams who close off space.
 
Even for the Caf standards I can't believe what I'm reading after a friendly for our youth players
 
Cannot believe I wasted two hours on that. Rashford. Christ Almighty.
 
I think he had far more good touches with the ball than bad ones. Yes he had a couple of poor touches and possession losses - but so did everybody else and it’s always going to happen with zero match sharpness after a break.

Again we struggled very badly building out of the back and he was one of the reasons for that.