Youth Strategy

Mr. MUJAC

Manchester United Youth Historian
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Sep 19, 2005
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Walter Crickmer started it all...
With so many players leaving on Friday on loan I penned this yesterday afternoon questioning our strategy at youth level.

http://www.stretford-end.com/2014/02/manchester-united-youth-strategy/

Then after our U/21 game against Leicester City last night, Warren Joyce was interviewed and he expressed his concerns over the whole set-up.

He said that the U/21 league was 'not conducive to young player development…" and that United "would like to develop their own league programme playing against grown men…" to give youngsters more competitive action. Joyce concluded by saying that "the gap between U/21 league football and the first team was too big…"

I ran some analysis this morning and although I knew many players weren't getting a lot of games, I didn't realise the true extent.

14 players graduated from the Academy last year and I have crunched some numbers in terms of game time over the last six months from the opening day of the season until the end of January. The games included are competitive games only so Lancashire Senior Cup, Manchester Senior Cup, U/21 League and UEFA Youth League.

The figures equate to total minutes played, average games and then starts and substitute appearances.

1. Joe Rothwell - 831 minutes or 9.23 games (9 starts and 3 sub)
2. Ben Pearson - 583 minutes or 6.48 games (6 starts and 4 sub)
3. James Weir - 496 minutes or 5.51 games (5 starts and 2 sub)
4. Sam Byrne - 481 minutes or 5.34 games (5 starts and 1 sub)
5. Paddy McNair - 344 minutes or 3.82 games (3 starts and 1 sub)
6. Louis Rowley - 302 minutes or 3.36 games (3 starts and 1 sub)
7. Donald Love - 271 minutes or 3.01 games (2 starts and 2 sub)
8. Pierre-Luigi Gollini - 270 minutes or 3.00 games (3 starts 0 sub)
9. Liam Grimshaw - 238 minutes or 2.64 games (2 starts 3 sub)
10. Jonny Sutherland - 90 minutes or 1.00 game (1 start 0 sub)
11. Jack Barmby - 85 minutes or 0.95 game (0 starts 3 sub)
12. Jack Rudge - no competitive game time
13. Declan Dalley - no competitive game time
14. Kieran O'Hara - no competitive game time (on loan to Trafford FC)

So as the data shows, apart from Rothwell, most other players have played less than one game per month with half of the graduates playing one game every two months.

I have no idea how this is helping their development as players.

The club has organised numerous friendly fixtures against the likes of Birmingham, Barnsley and other teams but they are played behind closed doors and are non-competitive.

I think it's because of this situation mostly that Warren Joyce came out with his comments yesterday. The FA/FL authorities seem to have no idea.

It could also be a major trigger for all the loan activity last Friday.

These players need to play.
 
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I knew it was bad but those numbers are shocking. The worst part is that this was totally predictable so someone somewhere must simply not have given too much of a feck about these lads. Last season there was real momentum to the development of several of these guys, obviously that's gone now. Ultimately, this lousy planning might be the difference between one of these guys making it professionally or not.
 
Christ, that's bad. Couldn't it imagine being anywhere close to those numbers.
 
It's ridiculous, but it all stems from the fact that so many players have been wasted playing u21s whilst these guys sit on the sidelines.

The likes of Cole for example and Will Keane needn't have been playing u21s this year. Then you have the likes of Thorpe etc. I can't remember everyone from the top of my head, but either way more players should have been out on loan earlier.

I do like what we've done with sending a couple of players a piece to each lots of teams. Could possibly be the way forward for us in doing so.
 
Good article. I agree those stats are shocking and has to be hindering the development of those players. Pearson for example I was quite excited about him featuring regularly in the U21s this season yet I don't think he's played nearly as many games as he should be at this stage in his development to help bring him on.

They were mentioned them briefly in the points at the bottom of the article but I seriously think developing close relationships with one or two teams in the lower leagues (and other leagues like Chelsea with Vitesse for example - ) has to be a way forward. Not turning them into a full on Manchester United reserve team, which would be disrespectful to the history and integrity of the loan club, but I do feel the link has to be quite strong though, as somewhere we trust to develop our youngsters as people as well as footballers. I think the loan system is important. I remember reading a Nicky Butt article a few weeks ago where he said the kids nowadays aren't 'streetwise' on the pitch, and it's mainly because they're mollycoddled in life and get everything easy and don't have to fight for much or fend for themselves. It makes them quite naïve in footballing terms, which is quite different to how things were when the class of 92 lot were growing up. I think loans bring maturity. You're away from home and fighting for real points and peoples jobs and livelihoods depend on the weekly performances. It's impossible to create the same importance in U21s matches no matter how they try to dress it up in an attempt to make it mirror the PL. Having links with our club, help with coaching etc would no doubt help the loan clubs too.
 
I certainly think it's a serious problem, but I figured maybe I was missing something. Hearing Joyce make those comments certainly makes me think the problem is really that serious.

Of course, it's not like the reserves are going out there and destroying everyone in sight, outclassing them and appearing as men against boys.

Rather I think the issue is finding a platform for players that are ready to graduate from the reserves but not ready for the first team. I have no doubt that Barca's success in bringing through youth players is greatly assisted by having Barca B in the Spanish second division. Who knows what would have happened to so many of their players without that team, where they could continue their football education within the same football style they've been training since they were kids, playing against grown men on teams that are truly teams, used to playing together for the single goal of winning.

Winning is certainly emphasized in the reserves, but first and foremost it's about developing skills.
 
What is the competitiveness of MLS like? I wonder how it would be to send some kids out there on loan. I say this because I think it would be good to send them far away to grow up and have some independence.
 
Genius Me! said:
What is the competitiveness of MLS like? I wonder how it would be to send some kids out there on loan. I say this because I think it would be good to send them far away to grow up and have some independence.
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We should just go in with Goldenballs to fund the new Miami expansion team and populate the team with United youngsters.
 
Genius Me! said:
What is the competitiveness of MLS like? I wonder how it would be to send some kids out there on loan. I say this because I think it would be good to send them far away to grow up and have some independence.
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It's been compared to the Championship, I've never watched it though so I don't know.
 
Mr. MUJAC said:
With so many players leaving on Friday on loan I penned this yesterday afternoon questioning our strategy at youth level.

http://www.stretford-end.com/2014/02/manchester-united-youth-strategy/

Then after our U/21 game against Leicester City last night, Warren Joyce was interviewed and he expressed his concerns over the whole set-up.

He said that the U/21 league was 'not conducive to young player development…" and that United "would like to develop their own league programme playing against grown men…" to give youngsters more competitive action. Joyce concluded by saying that "the gap between U/21 league football and the first team was too big…"

I ran some analysis this morning and although I knew many players weren't getting a lot of games, I didn't realise the true extent.

14 players graduated from the Academy last year and I have crunched some numbers in terms of game time over the last six months from the opening day of the season until the end of January. The games included are competitive games only so Lancashire Senior Cup, Manchester Senior Cup, U/21 League and UEFA Youth League.

The figures equate to total minutes played, average games and then starts and substitute appearances.

1. Joe Rothwell - 831 minutes or 9.23 games (9 starts and 3 sub)
2. Ben Pearson - 583 minutes or 6.48 games (6 starts and 4 sub)
3. James Weir - 496 minutes or 5.51 games (5 starts and 2 sub)
4. Sam Byrne - 481 minutes or 5.34 games (5 starts and 1 sub)
5. Paddy McNair - 344 minutes or 3.82 games (3 starts and 1 sub)
6. Louis Rowley - 302 minutes or 3.36 games (3 starts and 1 sub)
7. Donald Love - 271 minutes or 3.01 games (2 starts and 2 sub)
8. Pierre-Luigi Gollini - 270 minutes or 3.00 games (3 starts 0 sub)
9. Liam Grimshaw - 238 minutes or 2.64 games (2 starts 3 sub)
10. Jonny Sutherland - 90 minutes or 1.00 game (1 start 0 sub)
11. Jack Barmby - 85 minutes or 0.95 game (0 starts 3 sub)
12. Jack Rudge - no competitive game time
13. Declan Dalley - no competitive game time
14. Kieran O'Hara - no competitive game time (on loan to Trafford FC)

So as the data shows, apart from Rothwell, most other players have played less than one game per month with half of the graduates playing one game every two months.

I have no idea how this is helping their development as players.

The club has organised numerous friendly fixtures against the likes of Birmingham, Barnsley and other teams but they are played behind closed doors and are non-competitive.

I think it's because of this situation mostly that Warren Joyce came out with his comments yesterday. The FA/FL authorities seem to have no idea.

It could also be a major trigger for all the loan activity last Friday.

These players need to play.
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Great piece as always. Very interesting subject, and a bit of a surprise to me. Our U21s must have played 25-30 games in total this season. How many games are Rothwell, Wilson and Pearson on so far? Im especially worrried about Weir!

You familiar with Malcolm Gladwells 10 000 hour rule? In football that is all about gametime..
 
Great post, very interesting. I think with youth players, we need to move away from such a structured approach and be more tailored to each individual. Some players may benefit from game time, some from developing through training. I'd be interested to know our strategy for loaning players. Again needs to be tailored. Quality of coaching, facilities, and style of play and what not all should be considered when loaning a player. Sometimes I think we are haphazard in our approach and it costs us. I'm sure a lot can be said about other clubs too.
 
limerickcitykid said:
It would be impossible to play 10,000 hours of game time.
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No shit..

The basic point of the rule is to have more practice than your "competitors". Of course, I do not want to neglect what happens on the training pitch every day. However, the ability to perceive situations in a split second that the best players in the world do is a result of two factors:

1. Talent.
2. They have been in similar situations x-amount of times (this is also the reason why attacking players often end up beeing better DMs and fullbacks than the ones actually playing there at a young age).
 
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andersj said:
No shit..

The basic point of the rule is to have more practice than your "competitors". Of course, I do not want to neglect what happens on the training pitch every day. However, the ability to perceive situations in a split second that the best players in the world do is a result of two factors:

1. Talent.
2. They have been in similar situations x-amount of times (this is also the reason why attacking players often end up beeing better DMs and fullbacks than the ones actually playing there at a young age).
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Again, you have it wrong.
 
We should try what Spain do. Making "Barcelona B" and join a competition like championship or league 1 or league 2. No wonder England haven't produce a lot of amazing young players for such a long time now.
 
JSMHE said:
We should try what Spain do. Making "Barcelona B" and join a competition like championship or league 1 or league 2. No wonder England haven't produce a lot of amazing young players for such a long time now.
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It's been a suggested a few times hasn't it? Never with much seriousness but that's mainly because every time it is mentioned there is a large wave of negativity towards the idea from fans lower down the league system and people who sympathise with them. It'll never get implemented until it has popular support I reckon and that isn't going to happen any time soon.
 
Do you think we'll learn our lesson next season or repeat the same mistake?

As thing stands there'll be 11 youngsters officially "promoted" from the U18s next season:Wilson,A.Pereira,Janko,J.Pereira,C.Evans,McConnell,Goss,Willock,Harrop,Fletcher,O'Hara

No worries for Wilson,A.Pereira,Janko who are already U21s regulars but considering we're having around 25 older players in the U21s, we need to loan out + promote around 15-18 of them if we want those promoted from U18s and those who didn't play much this year likes Weir,Love,Gollini... to have good amount of game times.Considering our reluctance to loan out players at the start of season I'm afraid many of them will find themselves getting almost zero game times at the first half of next season especially with no U19s CL coming up.

IMO this should be the XI for U21s next season,everyone else should be loaned out/promoted:
J.Pereira - Janko,McNair,McConnell,Rowley - Pearson,Rothwell - Harrop,A.Pereira,Weir - Wilson
Subs: O'Hara,Fletcher,Goss,Willock,C.Evans,CBJ

Pearson,Rothwell and the likes to be loaned out on November/December/January until the end of season.

XI for second half of the season after the loan window closed (just to give a rough idea,too many things could have happened):
Gollini - Love,McConnell,C.Evans,Rowley - Goss,Willock - Harrop,Weir,Mitchell - Fletcher
Subs: Henderson,Rashford,CBJ,Thompson,Riley,Redmond

Considering the likes of M.Keane,Lingard,Wilson,Lawrence and Powell might stay to be blooded to the first team and play odd U21s games I think this squad is fair enough in terms of squad strength and giving game times to everyone.Not to mention to we'll probably sign 1-2 new players who'll play for the U21s initially.I've no clue to give a good prediction about their positions.

Bit early for Love and Gollini to be loaned out but it's better for them than stay and compete with Joyce-favorited Janko and J.Pereira.
 
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Halfway through this season we finally got our act together and sent players out on loan en masse, and that seriously improved the situation. Hopefully this season we'll have learnt our lesson and we'll be as proactive with loans as possible from the word go.

We're working within a very flawed system, but it is possible to navigate that system effectively and that's all we can try and do. As far as I know there's no limit to the number of youngsters we can loan out, and there's certainly no limit to the appetite for gifted young loanees out in the football league, so technically there should never be any need for a player to be sitting around doing nothing for months.

I'm listening to Hodgson's conference while writing this so I might have missed one or two details, but that strategy looks about right to me Khoazany.
 
Brightonian said:
Halfway through this season we finally got our act together and sent players out on loan en masse, and that seriously improved the situation. Hopefully this season we'll have learnt our lesson and we'll be as proactive with loans as possible from the word go.

We're working within a very flawed system, but it is possible to navigate that system effectively and that's all we can try and do. As far as I know there's no limit to the number of youngsters we can loan out, and there's certainly no limit to the appetite for gifted young loanees out in the football league, so technically there should never be any need for a player to be sitting around doing nothing for months.
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Definitely.What I'm worry is the new manager might want many of the U21s players to stay to "learn more about them" especially if we go for Van Gaal he will officially start the job quite late due to Holland commitment.That easily leads to the same situation this season and even worse with no U19s CL.We need to have a coherent loan strategy i.e U21s squad excluded those on loan must not be exceed a certain number (16-20) and every player staying should be targeted to get at least a particular number of minutes during first half and second half of the season (we clearly don't have this last season when Rudge gets 0 and Barmby only a few, those 2 weren't eligible for the U19s CL).

Difficult to get everything right if we take into account that getting the right clubs for loanees isn't an obvious task and we can't know for sure whether a player is ready for men football but if you couldn't expect to give game times to a certain player at this level, releasing him is better than letting him stagnant the way many did this season.I believe we already have some plan in mind when we let go of Ioannou and Barber.I think those are the players we can't ensure game times next season.Let's hope the new manager will go with the no bullshit approach this time round.
 
I'm disappointed that we've stockpiled midfielders as we have and yet let defenders and strikers leave. You need to work in a team where you learn how it is to play with everyone in their proper positions, even if occasionally you play somewhere else too for your overall education, even if maybe the strength is the midfielders and the strikers aren't so strong, for example.
 
eddiebigballs said:
I'm disappointed that we've stockpiled midfielders as we have and yet let defenders and strikers leave. You need to work in a team where you learn how it is to play with everyone in their proper positions, even if occasionally you play somewhere else too for your overall education, even if maybe the strength is the midfielders and the strikers aren't so strong, for example.
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Well that's what they get with the nice early loan spells. We may not have many strikers or defenders, but as long as we're able to scrape together a decent looking side (and given that the U21s are in the final, I'd say we're clearly doing that) then no-one's education is being negatively affected. This season, for example, Wilson has been a hell of a striker to play behind, and whilst the likes of Ekangamene have had to play out of position as defenders, they've obviously done a good enough job given that we've got the tightest defence in the league.

I agree that the balance could be better, but not that we should prioritise that balance over doing what's right - loan spell, U18s, U21s, first team chances - for each player on an individual basis. First teams need to worry about having the right players for the right positions, but youth teams should mainly concern themselves with giving the best players the best education and experience.
 
Joyce has always played players out of their supposed natural positions though to be fair, it does aid development due to progressing players' positional awareness and such.
 
I think having seen the Southampton players at the weekend, it gives a pretty good idea of what Moyes was looking for. They were all technically good and tactically reasonable footballers, but they were all already big units and clearly well grown out at the age of 17-18. When you look at the likes of Lawrence, Thorpe, Keane, Lingard they're 20-21 and still skinny wee kids even though only Lingard was particularly small of those 4 from the u18s upwards (Keane was small for a while but by his last season in the u18s he was already one of the tallest).
 
eddiebb said:
I think having seen the Southampton players at the weekend, it gives a pretty good idea of what Moyes was looking for. They were all technically good and tactically reasonable footballers, but they were all already big units and clearly well grown out at the age of 17-18. When you look at the likes of Lawrence, Thorpe, Keane, Lingard they're 20-21 and still skinny wee kids even though only Lingard was particularly small of those 4 from the u18s upwards (Keane was small for a while but by his last season in the u18s he was already one of the tallest).
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We did play attention to physical and strength development just that we tend to be more patient than most of the English clubs when it comes to give those small lads a chance.Some of our youth players are best youth athletes in Manchester i.e Faustin Makela.
 
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