Dalot already spent a year as Youngs understudy, being someone else understudy wont do him anygood. If Dalot can not handle the pressure, he should be moved on, come to think of it, I don't think I ever seen a player in Uniteds first-team that could not handle the pressure. Laird or O'Connor could be anything from several weeks to several years away from Premier League football, the thing is, we will never know unless we play them. We can not expect other to develop players for us, and no one is supposed to be better at developing players then United. O'Connor turns 19 this summer, there is no way he is to young, all he lacks is experience, which he will not get if we blocks his path to first team football.
Laird spend a year out being injured, so I would not count on him getting ready over the summer, usually you need a solid physical training foundation before playing first team fooball, but I don't have any insight into how Laird have done on the training field. Chong is another example of a player spending a year out injured before getting back last season playing regular U23 football, Chong has not been physical ready to play first team football last season as he has not gotten the training foundation needed to play in Premier League. But after this summer one can hope that Chong works hard enough in training so he will be physical ready to play in the Premier League next season.
This is atleast how I think about it when it comes to give young talented players a chance. There is plenty of talent at the academy, we just need to identify who is ready physically, then give them a chance, instead of blocking their path. The times we have not been rewarded doing so is rare, usually our failure has come from not playing or own talents.
Only reason to sign AWB is if he is good enough, a clear upgrade on or own talents, and I don't know if he is that. He lacks the ability to attack on the opponents half, so we have to spend time develop this ability in AWB, and for the price quoted, I feel like we are better served staying away. Our defense has been leaking since our tactics been to park a bus, and obviously a defensive fullback makes sense in such systems. But in a high tempo attacking structure, defensive fullbacks does not help a lot, as long as they have enough energy to run back into position when we lose the ball, they need to be attacking. A old saying, attack is the best defense, and lets worry about beating City and Barcelona later, for now we need to beat Wolves and Everton to move up the table.