Mourinho and youth

the nuts named eric

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Sideshow Bob edit: I have created a new thread using the posts on youth players from the following thread: Mourinho: United fans could have done more against Swansea.

Ah brilliant, the tool is looking to alienate the only people who were in support of him. Seriously hope he gets a dressing down from Fergie or someone. Needs to give the fans something to get behind. Playing a young lad in this instance can do that. But he wouldn't know that would he!
 
I am not happy with him saying this about fans that are supporting him. However I don't really see throwing youngsters in helping. I know what you mean, supporters are more likely to get behind a homegrown kid than a highly paid import. Unfortunately i don't really think we have youngsters that are anywhere near ready, particularly throwing them into a bit of a makeshift team.
 
All the reports I've read of Tuanzebe is that he is ready. Rashford showed under LVG that giving a kid a chance can and often does pay off. Mourinho is too much of a coward to take a chance like that though. It would have given the stadium a lift, now I know Perreira is off on loan and most of the prospects are off somewhere but when the squad is getting thin the stadium would have been all for a youngster starting over Rooney. That would have given the attack some impetus and dare I say some drive. I have always had this fear with Jose and I cannot see it dissipating. I'm used, obviously, to Fergie's style of squad management. But I have long been an observer of Jose's management to know it does not fit right with me, and my idea of United.
 
I sort of agree with you about pereira, had he not been on loan getting lots of game time in a good league. We have seen what rashford can do but i personally don't think he is ready to lead the line week in week out. I am sure he will be one day but i don't think that is yet. Tuanzebe, sorry but he is not ready. He might get away with playing him in one of the so called easier games in an otherwise full first team. I love seeing homegrown playerscome through the ranks but there is very little out there at the moment
 
It's so easy to say throw Tuanzebe in there and see how he does but if has a shocker then that could put his development back so far. I don't know if you guys follow cricket but we played a spinner called Kerrigan a few years back when he clearly wasn't ready and he got smashed about and he's never been seen since. Tuanzebe is clearly a talent but I can see why Jose hasn't thrown him in yet. Obviously LVG threw some youngsters in and yes Rashford worked out but for every Rashford there is a Blackett. There is going to come a point when Tuanzebe has to play but it wasn't today.
 
I remember us throwing Beckham, Butt, Scholes, Simon Davies and John O'Kane in against Galatasary, I know a different era but still, European game against quality opposition.

I take the Blackett example, but he played OK before injury for LVG. Thought McNair did too, Love was given league minutes. Varela, TFM. This season up to TFM coming on due to Fellaini's stupidity, Jose has played who from our youth teams? Who has he assessed? Lingard and Rashford were already established, he's cowardly, LVG's 'philosophy' was anti-united but his attempt to bolster the squad with youth was not. Now in my eyes we have double the antithesis of the United way, without the Portuguese normal results, is this something I should be happy about?
 
Blackett didn't really do alright. His confidence was destroyed against Leicester. It is always hard to judge after the fact. You want to say that the careers of borthwick jackson, love, macnair, riley have been enhanced by being thrown in but i don't believe they have. I don't think any of those were ever going to make it at United.
 
Stat from April 16th: Minutes given to teenagers in the Premier League this season:

Conte – 0
Wenger – 1
Pochettino – 19
Guardiola – 415
Mourinho – 1,443

His comments about the fans will have annoyed many and those on the fence might start to turn against him.
 
It will and i don't think it was a wise thing to say. But i think his criticism in terms of throwing youth in is harsh. That stat is a bit misleading as all the players he has given minutes to were already in the first team squad more or less. However you can only do it if the players are good enough and we currently have the weakest u23 squad i can ever remember. All the talent is in the u18s. We would have to wait and see how they develop and if he gives any of those a chance.
 
Stat from April 16th: Minutes given to teenagers in the Premier League this season:

Conte – 0
Wenger – 1
Pochettino – 19
Guardiola – 415
Mourinho – 1,443

The stat is misleading in giving the impression that Mourinho is an advocate of youth.

The problems are: -

1) It only includes league games - what about those who have played in the Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup?

2) It only includes teenagers - which excludes young players like Alli, Iwobi, Origi, Iheanacho, Sane, etc.

3) The stat based almost entirely on the strength of Rashford and doesn't show how far down the list Fosu-Mensah and Tuanzebe are in minutes played compared to other clubs' teenagers.

4) The stat doesn't show that clubs like City and Liverpool have actually given game time in all competitions to twice as many teenagers as United.

Mourinho will never be one to provide opportunities to, or develop, youth.
 
About his comments on the fans, I'm afraid it's typical Mourinho apportioning blame on everyone else to deflect from his own failings.
 
The stat highlights that managers at top clubs give little opportunity to young players. It's not just a Mourinho thing. Few managers in the modern era will trust the inconsistencies of youth given the fickle nature of football. We're unlikely to see another manager who will fulfil the criteria of the ideal United manager; the stakes are too high and competition is incredibly strong. We live in a different football world, I'm afraid.

Touching on the subject matter in the opening post, I think Mourinho's handling of the media has been poor.
 
Apologies equation.

You have to love predictive text! :confused:


The stat highlights that managers at top clubs give little opportunity to young players. It's not just a Mourinho thing. Few managers in the modern era will trust the inconsistencies of youth given the fickle nature of football. We're unlikely to see another manager who will fulfil the criteria of the ideal United manager; the stakes are too high and competition is incredibly strong. We live in a different football world, I'm afraid.

Touching on the subject matter in the opening post, I think Mourinho's handling of the media has been poor.

I agree to an extent but still think Mourinho could do better in giving youth a chance. I hate to use this as an example, but Liverpool have given more minutes to Alexander-Arnold, Ejaria, Woodburn and Gomez each individually than Fosu-Mensah and Tuanzebe have had combined. They have also given minutes to Ojo Sheyi and Harry Wilson.

These are the stats showing minutes given to every teenager in all competitions at the top 7 clubs (ranked by minutes played at the time of the article): -

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* the dates after some player names are when they turned 20 years old - games after that are not included.

If we had included players up to and including 20 years old then Deli Alli firmly bumps Rashford off the top of the table.
 
I think the bottom line is you have to be good enough to play and on the whole the youngsters we have that might be good enough have played some minutes. Those players mentioned above are a little older and at a different level to ours. I agree, I don't think it will ever be easy under Jose to come through the ranks but not impossible. I think under LVG injuries forced him into playing youngsters which by and large didn't work out. I want United to bring players through and still harbour hopes for Tuanzebe and TFM.
 
Thanks Gave, this illustrates my point. Mourinho is all too often heard lamenting that our young lads are not ready, however by not giving them game time in FA Cup, Europa League or EFL Cup he has not helped their preparedness. Klopp on the other hand has assessed his squad and felt getting the young lads competitive minutes in the cup competitions will help him in any instance his first choice breaks down. Conte has given time to the upper age group players of his under 23 squad, Loftus-Cheek got time against us recently (previously established under Ancelotti) and the majority if not all of their promising teens are in some sort of long term loan agreement. Mourinho is in my eyes too cowardly to give minutes to the younger players (excl. Rashford) as he has no time for anyone outside the first team squad. Which means he is not tracking Tuanazebe or TFM in u-23 as he has his 20 that he'll play come hell or high water.

I hark back to LVG because he is the only manager in recent times to view the CB crises that always occurs and play CB's there. Even Fergie took the easy option on more than one occasion of Carrick and Evra.

That to me is how you manage a squad. We have a history from way before my lifetime of our youth players supplementing or providing the first team. Under Mourinho we are seeing a degradation to this and in some ways it is leading to the injuries we are picking up now with just about a month of season to go. Play any modern player with the modern demands more than 40 full 90's in a season and you heighten the injury risk, fatigue and 'over-training' take hold after this point and it is merely a matter of time until something gives. Sometimes that's a mental snap and a player will lose concentration when they never used to. Sometimes it will be physical.

Squad management HAS to be part of Jose's remit, and unfortunately he is not holistic enough to approach it in that manner.

There is a lot of decrying the strength of our squad, last year we were gagging for TFM to get more minutes, Borthwick-Jackson looked like a possible 3rd choice LB (better than Rojo there in my eyes), Rashford was a sensation. Who this year can we say has had a chance to have us think like that for next season? The manager then has the temerity to blame the fans? Smacks of desperation and blame gaming. Consistent traits of the Portuguese career after Portugal.

I'm not a fan of Jose, never have been, but was willing to give him a chance as he was in charge of the team. If he was auditioning for my approval (I know he is not) he'd have failed, massively!
 
Fosu-Mensah is the one who should have played more minutes. Tuanzebe isn't ready and is behind players in the pecking order. In Mourinho's defence there is a shortage of quality in the U23s to pick from. He still might not have used players from the U23s even if the pool of talent was better, but we do not know the answer for certain.
 
The stats are heavily distorted by the fact that Rashford has played so many games however we've known for a while that we had a poor youth team and we were going to have a lapse in players coming through. The U18's now look like the better group of lads coming through. There are big hopes for the likes of Gribbin and Gomes.

We've got Periera coming back after a good season out on loan. Joel Periera is seen as a good youth option. With that said I do think TFM should have got a few more minutes.

I'd also be careful talking up LVG's use of Rashford. It wasn't a choice he got in the side because we had an injury crises and he even told his Mum not to attend his debut as he wasn't going to get on the pitch. The fact was he scored a double and then hit the scene with such fire he couldn't be dropped. To get a chance at United you have to impress from day one.
 
Can't edit the post. Second paragraph is referring to two different Perieras
 
I tend to think Jose isn't the best at bringing through homegrown talent but as we don't really have any to bring through at the moment you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. There is no way I would be throwing Tuanzebe in at the moment, he is not ready. The only player currently at the club that you can say hasn't been given a fair chance is TFM and he is still pretty young. The quality just isn't there at the moment and I don't think you can judge Jose until it is, hopefully when this crop of U18s mature.
 
Stat from April 16th: Minutes given to teenagers in the Premier League this season:

Conte – 0
Wenger – 1
Pochettino – 19
Guardiola – 415
Mourinho – 1,443

His comments about the fans will have annoyed many and those on the fence might start to turn against him.

These stats tell a massive lie because about 1,400 of those minutes are Rashford.
 
These stats tell a massive lie because about 1,400 of those minutes are Rashford.

The purpose of posting the stats was to highlight that Mourinho is not alone in not giving opportunities to young players.
 
I know it wasn't a dig at you more the stats but stats can lie for example since when was youth measured as teenagers? That stat when I saw it looked to me like classic Mourinho propaganda a stat that's true but tells a whopping lie.

PL & PFA recognise youth players as U23 internationally. Where are the stats for those age ranges if you changed it to U21? I'm guessing Spurs numbers shoot up with Alli & Winks, City can count Sterling, Sane, Jesus etc, Arsenal would count Bellerin & iwobi. Chelsea numbers would probably stay about the same, you'd have a bit of Ake & Loftus-Cheek time but not a lot. Rashford is one of the best teenage footballers in Europe right now and not playing him when he's already better than nearly everyone else in our squad would be madness.

I think there's a time and place for putting in yout. Fergie rarely put the youth in when the team was doing badly and I think Mourinho is similar with it. He'd love to put Fosu-Mensa and Tuenzebe in, but to do that he wants games finished 3-0 at home, not chuck them in at 1-0 in a must win game.

If Bailly is out my guess is Tuenzebe starts vs Celta unless Mourinho thinks he can play Carrick in a back 3
 
I didn't take your post as a dig at me, @jsp. To be fair to Mourinho, when considering players in their early 20's: Martial is 21 and Bailly has recently turned 23.
 
I guess though if you bump the age up, United could use Martial and Shaw. As you say stats can prove almost anything. This is more about quality. Pretty sure if Jose had Sane, Alli, Jesus etc he would be using them. Time will tell if Jose will ever put his trust in youth when we have more youth to play. You are also correct about wanting to play them in games that are already won. I remember Giuseppe Rossi being on the bench week in and week out but we never got far enough in front to play him.
 
Always harder to throw CBs in as well as a mistake can haunt you forever. If an attacking player comes on and misses a good chance it's easy to recover. My guess is Pique & Evans had more experience when they made debuts and were probably paired with either Rio or Vidic.

It's a tough one. Ideally you want to bring kids in slowly in a settled side with guys who can look after them and help them through. I think had Rojo, who seemed to be the organiser in this defence had been fit, we might have seen Axel but throwing him on as sub vs Swansea with Blind is a huge gamble when Darmian is probably versatile enough to go in.
 

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