Gone are the days of the Busby Babes. Gone are the days of Sir Alex Ferguson. The biggest and the most entertaining factor of the Manchester United team over the years has been their affection to give youngsters a chance. During the days of Sir Matt Busby, the team had players younger than 25 and that team won everything in Europe.
As the years and the glory faded away, in came Sir Alex Ferguson. He brought into the club a new culture of inducing the young players into the first team. He introduced to the world the class of ’92. His system saw the players like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Gary and Phil Neville and Nicky Butt graduate from the youth academy to become first team stars.
The situation continued over the years as Ferguson started winning trophies with them. Over the years he developed many players and dared to give many of them a chance. While his gamble failed on occasions, he was also successful plenty of times.
The examples of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney is a testament to the fact that Ferguson had imbibed into United a culture of developing talent rather than buying it.
However, it has been over six years since the Scot has left and the club has seemingly moved on from that culture. The team has been managed by different bosses like David Moyes, Louis Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho.
None of the new bosses have really inducted Ferguson’s system. Van Gaal came close to the system with his style of play when he introduced players of young age. He also developed many players but unfortunately, his tenure came to an early end when he could not gather enough wins.
Now with Mourinho in charge, the Portuguese has his set of ideas. He is not the biggest encourager of young players and prefers to use developed stars in the team. This system has rendered many youngsters useless.
The latest reports have confirmed that the newest player to have been left by United is under 18 defender Jake Barrett. He has been excellent in the academy league for United and has finally been left by United.
He will join up with another team from England in Huddersfield Town. Huddersfield are enjoying a new season at the top level and will want to add as many talented players as possible for the future while they are at the top.