Darren Fletcher has moved to protect Manchester United\u2019s academy after remarks from Ruben Amorim left the club\u2019s youth pathway under scrutiny. Fletcher, serving as caretaker manager, emphasised the academy\u2019s long record while preparing his squad for Sunday\u2019s FA Cup third round tie with Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n
Mainoo has played just 228 minutes of Premier League football this season\u2014he was starting for England in the Euro 2024 final 18 months ago\u2014and Amorim was at risk of becoming the first United manager since 1937 not to name an academy product in a matchday squad when he picked up an injury in November. The record was preserved when Amorim selected Jack Fletcher, Darren\u2019s son, to be on the bench\u2014though he was criticised for many considered to be a \u201ctoken gesture\u201d selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not going to stop with academy players. It doesn’t matter about the result. We will continue with these small details which are the foundations of our club,\u201d Amorim said after that game about United\u2019s youngsters. His subsequent comments painted a very different picture.<\/p>\n
Fletcher, who took charge of the 2\u20132 draw with Burnley on Wednesday, has assumed responsibilities that include dealing with the media, something Amorim was loathe to do. He used his first full briefing to distance himself from a narrow narrative and to underline the club\u2019s history of producing talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think historically, and this club’s built around the academy, we’ve got an amazing academy,\u201d Fletcher told reporters. \u201cOur record speaks for itself. I’m not going to sit and stand here and say anything other than that. We’ve got an amazing record. I think it’s hard to beat in terms of the history of clubs around the world. I think we’ve got some amazing players, some amazing talents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what I see is a lot of hard-working, humble young players who aren’t perfect because they’re young and they’re learning and they’ve got a lot to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fletcher also addressed availability issues around Bryan Mbeumo and Noussair Mazraoui, both at the Africa Cup of Nations, and the situation around Harry Maguire\u2019s return. \u201cI don’t think so. I think it’s too close a turnaround, so we’ll have the same players available for the game as we had against Burnley,\u201d he said of the AFCON duo. On Maguire he added: \u201cHe has been out for a while, so it’d probably be looking at his load and things like that. That decision’s not been made, but I think you’ve seen the players coming back the other night.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve seen Mason, you’ve seen Kobbie, you’ve seen Bruno. There has to be some understanding of their first minutes. They might have to be careful a little bit with that process to build back in. So I think Harry will probably be in that situation for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fletcher defends United academy, rebukes the narrative after Amorim’s earlier criticism. In details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,1083],"tags":[1211,1021,1305],"class_list":["post-5897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-development","category-man-utd","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-amorim","tag-bench-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}