Osole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was interim manager at the time of United's 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in January 2019, said in his post-match interview: "We have some very talented youngsters in our youth squad, such as Mason Greenwood, Garner and Hamilton, and it was not long before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer turned into United's long-term manager and he laid out a plan for a revival of the academy.
Since the summer window of 2019, Manchester United have signed Hannibal (now on loan to Sevilla in La Liga) and Mejía (now permanently to Sevilla) as a clarion call, and in the following years, they have successively started excavators to unearth young talent. Atletico Madrid's Garnacho (Manchester United's first team), Real Madrid's Álvaro (now joining Benfica in the Portuguese Super League), Barcelona's Jurado (now with Espanyol) and Isaac Hansen Aaron (now at Bremen in the Bundesliga) have joined Manchester United.
Since then, Manchester United has been poaching people from big clubs every year, or finding the leading talents of other clubs, poaching McNeil, the Fletcher brothers from Manchester City, Ennis from Liverpool, Folsen (many appearances this season) from Tottenham, Don Cole from Arsenal, the best full-back in his age group from Watford, goalkeeper Harrison from Stevenage (who has been in the first-team squad in the FA Cup), Ethan Williams from Rochdale and so on.
In 2022, Manchester United's youth training finally reaped the first results, and Garnacho and Meno have become regular players in the first team among the players who won the FA Youth Cup, and some players can already bring transfer benefits to Manchester United. United's first-team squad has relied on academy players to save lives in many games, Garnacho has seven goals and two assists this season, and has scored four goals, provided one assist and created 18 shots in seven games since turning right winger.
Garnacho has plugged United's weakest position and weakest attack this season, and since Mayno returned from injury in November, many statistics have ranked at the top of the Premier League, such as successfully blocking crosses to be fourth in the Premier League, successfully fighting for the top in the Premier League, and the most in the team in the number of times he has won the ball back.
Turning over Manchester United's goal and assist list this season, Garnacho has 7 goals and 2 assists, McTominay has 7 goals and 2 assists, Rashford has 5 goals and 5 assists, and Meno has 2 goals. This season, Meno has scored the same number of goals as Anthony Martial, who is a central striker. Scott McTominay has scored from the bench in recent games, with Garnacho scoring a goal from the bench in Manchester United's 3-0 win over West Ham.
In this group of youth players, Meno + Garnacho may be the most dazzling, Sky Sports even said: "Their combined age is not as big as Evans", that's right, Manchester United and 36-year-old Evans is also from the academy, when Manchester United's central defender fell into an injury shortage, Evans, as Manchester United's short-term and fifth central defender, once became the absolute main force, Manchester United is crazy to gnaw at the old, so some people say that "Manchester United's youth training saved Ten Hag this season", which may be very reasonable.
Now Manchester United U18 has won 14 consecutive wins, the Youth League Cup eliminated Arsenal to enter the semi-finals, and the Youth FA Cup was unexpectedly eliminated, many of these youngsters have begun to participate in the first team's joint training, they are entering the field of vision of the coaching staff and even the management, and even many youngsters have given high praise, such as fullback Armas, goalkeeper Harrison, center Wheatley, forward Jack Fletcher, and one or two years younger than them, as well as Ibrahimovic, Raisi, Kelooni and so on.
Manchester United are rebuilding, the squad needs to be constantly renewed, the profligacy of the Glazer period has spent the last of Manchester United's savings, Manchester United is facing a serious FFP threshold, has already been fined by UEFA, and now faces the FA threshold. Promoting youth training and selling youth training is the cheapest choice. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's emphasis on youth training at the time has become another key for INEOS to rebuild Manchester United five years later, and it has also become another choice for manager Ten Hag.
Of course, Manchester United still has 24-year-old Diogo Dalot, 20-year-old Hojlen, and 20-year-old Diallo. Ten Hag said after United's 3-0 win at West Ham that he came to United to develop young players, and who other youngsters will be on the horizon next season?