I’d like to ask some posters - if a player comes from our academy, is there ever any circumstance under which a supporter is entitled to watch him play (before the age of 25 or so) and form the opinion that he isn’t good enough for United? I’m very curious about this. It is never a reasonable conclusion to draw, so long as a player is ‘young’, and even if others tend to agree that they are not that good, it will then be proposed that, due to their attitude and understanding of the club, they at the minimum should just be left to grow into a squad player. Great performances will be hyped and used as evidence, and poor performances explained/mitigated.
For many, it seems there is no acceptable circumstance under which such player can simply be assessed as not good enough. It is of course perfectly acceptable to conclude young players at other teams, especially those linked to a transfer to United are not good enough. Or maybe a foreign kid signed into the academy (I’ve noticed it is perfectly fine to quickly conclude that Chong isn’t good enough, for example). But a British academy graduate, once entrusted with their debut, should at least be left to be assessed under perfect conditions, usually playing in the position of their choosing, having long uninterrupted spells in the team, never injured (otherwise post-injury performances don’t count, unless they are not shit of course), when they are at their maximum physical development and once they have played 3 or 4 full seasons. Until that happens, anyone who feels they aren’t good enough is jumped on. Then one day, as if almost overnight, a new academy player emerges, and they want the previously off-limits one out and replaced and the cycle repeats. Suddenly Wlebeck, Cleverley, Lingard go from being the ‘next whoever’ to dogs abuse. Surely, the more likely reality is that most of these players shipped out to teams far below our stature were likely never really good enough to be United players in the first place? Just seems that is never a viable suggestion.
