StanLindsay1
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Manchester United - Let’s Play – You’ll Never Win Anything With Kids (The Alan Hansen Rebuttal)
Manchester United are, quite simply, one of the most successful football teams on the planet. As a fan of the team since I was a boy, I have grown increasingly annoyed at the way the club has moved away from it’s tradition of producing it’s own talent and nurturing it through to the first team. Since Sir Alex Ferguson left, the list of players who have been dispensed with since graduating from our academy is scandalous. In the last 2 years alone, Danny Wellbeck, Paddy McNair, Tyler Blackett, the Keane borthers (Michael and Will) and James Chester have all been sold on one well before the prime of their careers. This has inspired me to try and rectify the situation with this challenge.
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To illustrate my point, here is team made of players who have left Utd since graduating from the Academy and are still currently playing:
Position: Name (Club they now play for)
GK: Tom Heaton (Burnley)
RB: Danny Simpson (Leicester)
CB: Gerard Pique (Barcelona)
CB: Jonny Evans (West Brom)
LB: Tyler Blackett (Wolves)
CM: Danny Drinkwater (Leicester)
CM: Tom Cleverley (Everton)
RW: Robbie Brady (Norwich)
AMC: Guiseppe Rossi (Celta Vigo – on loan from Fiorentina)
LW: Danny Wellbeck (Arsenal)
ST: Joshua King (Bournemouth)
Subs:
GK: Ron Robert Zeiler (Leicester)
RB: Rafael (Lyon)
CB: Ryan Shawcross (Stoke)
CM: Darren Fletcher (West Brom)
AMC: Ravel Morrison (Lazio)
ST: Frazier Campbell (Crystal Palace)
ST: Will Keane (Hull City)
The Idea:
The idea is to get Man Utd back to what it does best – winning a lot of games with players from the academy. Although a short period of transition will be inevitable as non academy graduates are moved on, I want to win the EPL, UCL and FA Cup with only academy graduates in the squad. I will accept all bids for players who did not graduate from the Academy. This will lead to me inevitably hemorrhaging top quality players, such as Martial and De Gea, but hopefully I can do this slowly enough to allow me to bring through some youth players to replace them with.
Objectives
1. Have a squad made up of only Academy Graduates.
2. Win the UCL, EPL and FA Cup treble in the same season, just like Sir Alex.
Rules:
1. No renewing of contracts for ANY non-academy graduates.
2. Can only sign players who are Academy Graduates.
3. I must accept any bids that come in for any players who are not academy graduates, regardless of the amount.
4. The only players who I can sign from other clubs who are not Man Utd Youth Graduates MUST be U-18 at the time of signing. This way, they will eventually be classed as an academy graduate in the home grown rules UEFA uses for the UCL.
The Plan:
The fact that I can not renew contracts means I will want to offer any players with one year left on their contract for sale. It also means I will only have Zlatan for one year. I will probably target players like Gerard Pique (Barca), Jonny Evans (West Brom) and Tom Heaton (Burnley) over the next few seasons. Just to be clear, ‘Academy Graduate’ means they have played for Utd while under the age of 18. This means Rooney, Shaw, and David De Gea won’t be playing us for long. It does mean that we can keep Pogba, so that’s a huge bonus! I expect the big challenge to be staying successful whilst blooding the youngsters.
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