UEFA Youth League | Manchester United vs Wolfsburg

There's too much pressure on young Gribbin to be the creative hub of this side. If he's having an off day we're always gonna struggle for chances. Dearnley and Redmond keep showing glimpses of creative ability, but not consistently enough to be categorized as bona fide creative players. Rashford has it in him but he's busy getting on the end of things these days. There's no shortage of individual talent (which ultimately is what matters) but as a team we lack balance.
 
On a side note encouraging performance from McTominay and that explained why the coaching staffs chose to keep him over Thompson last summer.
 
Decent result against a strong attacking Wolfsburg team who have scored 29 goals in 7 games in the league. Was impressed by Warren and McTominay but thought Gribbin, Tuanzebe and Fosu Mensah were poor by their own standards. Encouragingly most of the younger players like Warren, Williams, Whelan, Kehinde and Dearnley looked comfortable playing against older players
 
Not a good week for English clubs at UEFA Youth League.Boro (U18s league winner last season) now beaten 1-5 by Reims.
 
Just watching the game now. Henderson's throw, wow! He threw it well into the Wolfsburg half, great arm. Great pace by Rashford and good goal after the penalty.
 
Butt was disappointed with his team's display in the draw at Leigh Sports Village and expected more from his troops.

"If I'm being honest, I'd like more of a complete performance," he said. "Possession wise, it wasn't great. We didn't keep the ball as well as we can do. I felt really confident going into the game with a very powerful and strong team, I thought it would be a dominant team. But, unless you keep the ball, you're going to struggle in European football and that's what happened.

"In fairness, we did quite well in the last 15 minutes of the first half and the last 10 minutes of the second half. We took so long to get going in both halves that you're always going to put yourselves under pressure."

One real positive was an excellent performance by Tyrell Warren at right-back with the 16-year-old local lad catching the eye thanks to some tigerish tackling and boundless energy.

"He was probably the best player on the pitch," said Butt. "He defended really well, made some last-ditch challenges and did well against two men coming down the left-hand side for most of the time. He did really well but, overall, it was a disappointing day as I'm a coach who wants to see lads play and be confident by dictating play and we didn't do that at all really."
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