You Can't Win Anything With Youngsters
Liverpool legend Alan Hansen had to eat his own words (above) after dispelling Manchester's United chances in the wake of an opening day defeat against Aston Villa in the 1995/96 season. The youngsters at the park were namely, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and David Beckham. As history has it, that Manchester team went on to clinch domestic honours in the form of the Premier League title and the FA Cup.
!0 years on, Manchester United hangs in the balance of European qualification with another group of youngsters leading the side. The defeat to Lille this morning was disastrous. Lacking in creativity, an increasingly shaky defense and an out-of-sorts midfield. Later in the press conference, Sir Alex Ferguson acknowleged his side's weaknesses and call for fans worldwide to rally behind the team and to place trust on these youngsters.
Kieran Richardson, Philip Bardsley, Darren Fletcher, Alan Smith, Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Gilluepse Rossi are the current crop of youngsters hogging Manchester United's team sheet. Failure to capture Arjen Robben, Michel Essien has highlighted the shift of financial prowess to the Blue side of London. Top players are no longer enticed by the prospects to play at the Theatre of Dreams and this has resulted the shift in focus on the youth system.
It is still too early to judge whether this batch of young players can match up to the '96 batch in terms of technical ability and cultivate a winning mentatlity but the stark difference between these 2 sides is the lack of natural leaders in the squad.
The 1996 Manchester United side is led by the charismatic Frenchman Eric Cantona. Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Roy Keane are all leaders in their own right and that has transcended to stability and consistency to the side. The core of the team is placed on these leaders that lead the field, very much like how John Terry, Frank Lampard and Claude Makelele is doing now for Chelsea. The absence of Roy Keane in this current side was glaringly obvious, assistant captains like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand are too lightweight and too quiet to run the team. The lack of natural leaders on the field and throwing youngsters straight into the forray resulted in much greater responsibility and much more pressure to perform. David Beckham and company just had to complement and fit into the team that is operated so efficiently by Steve Bruce and company. They had leaders to take care of them on the pitch, cover for their mistakes, crticize them for a bad pass and that has resulted in more freedom of expression on the pitch without too much pressure.
With the exception of Christiano Ronaldo, the rest of the youngsters have not won anything with Manchester United and it may take some time for them to win something if the senior players in the side do not brush up their play. Ruud Van Nisterooy is no Eric Cantona and Rio Ferdinand can never be Steve Bruce in terms of leadership.
Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo are overloaded with praises and money that have affected their performance on the pitch. It must be noted that they have won only 1 major trohpy between them while the current longest-serving Manchester United player Ryan Giggs have won 1 European Cup, 1 European Cups' Winners' Cup, 9 domestic league titles and 6 FA cups. Showering young players with praise must be kept in check and not let them get over their heads.
It is very difficult to see this current bunch of young players emulating their predecessors. Their disappoiting display this morning and in previous matches show the lack of bite in attack and sloppy midfield distribution without Roy Keane or Paul Scholes in the middle of the park. Rio Ferdinand is half the player he was in World Cup 2002 and Ruud Van Nisterooy is essentially a player that requires quality service to produce the goods. Sadly to say, this current crop of Manchester United young players looks overall less promising than the talented West Ham team comprising of Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Jermaine Defoe which got relegated without any real leaders in their squad.
The current team of youngsters are stuck in past glories they did not help build, presuming they are quality players just because they don the red jersey. The team is over-relying on Ruud Van Nisterooy and Wayne Rooney who cannot produce anything substantial alone. Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke were successful in many ways due to superb service from Beckham, Scholes, Keane and Giggs. The same cannot be said for the current midfield side.
However, Sir Alex Ferguson rightly noted that trusting the young players and fielding them is the future of the sport. New UEFA rules require clubs to field more home-grown or home-trained players in the squads which will change the wholelandscape of European competitions. In light of the crazy amount of money clubs spent on players by Chelsea and buying over the best players in the World in an attempt to seize total domination in club football, Sir Alex Ferguson's only hopes is to rely and place trust on the youth system he helped built to create another footballing dynasty.
His trust was awarded one in 1996. His trust could be misplaced this time.
!0 years on, Manchester United hangs in the balance of European qualification with another group of youngsters leading the side. The defeat to Lille this morning was disastrous. Lacking in creativity, an increasingly shaky defense and an out-of-sorts midfield. Later in the press conference, Sir Alex Ferguson acknowleged his side's weaknesses and call for fans worldwide to rally behind the team and to place trust on these youngsters.
Kieran Richardson, Philip Bardsley, Darren Fletcher, Alan Smith, Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Gilluepse Rossi are the current crop of youngsters hogging Manchester United's team sheet. Failure to capture Arjen Robben, Michel Essien has highlighted the shift of financial prowess to the Blue side of London. Top players are no longer enticed by the prospects to play at the Theatre of Dreams and this has resulted the shift in focus on the youth system.
It is still too early to judge whether this batch of young players can match up to the '96 batch in terms of technical ability and cultivate a winning mentatlity but the stark difference between these 2 sides is the lack of natural leaders in the squad.
The 1996 Manchester United side is led by the charismatic Frenchman Eric Cantona. Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Roy Keane are all leaders in their own right and that has transcended to stability and consistency to the side. The core of the team is placed on these leaders that lead the field, very much like how John Terry, Frank Lampard and Claude Makelele is doing now for Chelsea. The absence of Roy Keane in this current side was glaringly obvious, assistant captains like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand are too lightweight and too quiet to run the team. The lack of natural leaders on the field and throwing youngsters straight into the forray resulted in much greater responsibility and much more pressure to perform. David Beckham and company just had to complement and fit into the team that is operated so efficiently by Steve Bruce and company. They had leaders to take care of them on the pitch, cover for their mistakes, crticize them for a bad pass and that has resulted in more freedom of expression on the pitch without too much pressure.
With the exception of Christiano Ronaldo, the rest of the youngsters have not won anything with Manchester United and it may take some time for them to win something if the senior players in the side do not brush up their play. Ruud Van Nisterooy is no Eric Cantona and Rio Ferdinand can never be Steve Bruce in terms of leadership.
Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo are overloaded with praises and money that have affected their performance on the pitch. It must be noted that they have won only 1 major trohpy between them while the current longest-serving Manchester United player Ryan Giggs have won 1 European Cup, 1 European Cups' Winners' Cup, 9 domestic league titles and 6 FA cups. Showering young players with praise must be kept in check and not let them get over their heads.
It is very difficult to see this current bunch of young players emulating their predecessors. Their disappoiting display this morning and in previous matches show the lack of bite in attack and sloppy midfield distribution without Roy Keane or Paul Scholes in the middle of the park. Rio Ferdinand is half the player he was in World Cup 2002 and Ruud Van Nisterooy is essentially a player that requires quality service to produce the goods. Sadly to say, this current crop of Manchester United young players looks overall less promising than the talented West Ham team comprising of Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Jermaine Defoe which got relegated without any real leaders in their squad.
The current team of youngsters are stuck in past glories they did not help build, presuming they are quality players just because they don the red jersey. The team is over-relying on Ruud Van Nisterooy and Wayne Rooney who cannot produce anything substantial alone. Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke were successful in many ways due to superb service from Beckham, Scholes, Keane and Giggs. The same cannot be said for the current midfield side.
However, Sir Alex Ferguson rightly noted that trusting the young players and fielding them is the future of the sport. New UEFA rules require clubs to field more home-grown or home-trained players in the squads which will change the wholelandscape of European competitions. In light of the crazy amount of money clubs spent on players by Chelsea and buying over the best players in the World in an attempt to seize total domination in club football, Sir Alex Ferguson's only hopes is to rely and place trust on the youth system he helped built to create another footballing dynasty.
His trust was awarded one in 1996. His trust could be misplaced this time.
posted by jingli K at
6:43 pm
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