Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has promised the club’s youth team players they will get a chance to show they can step-up into senior football during the English giants’ pre-season tour of the United States.
There have been complaints that a United youth system which saw David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville all graduate into the first team, is no longer producing players for the side.
And the recent signing of Memphis Depay from Dutch side PSV Eindhoven is unlikely to do much for United’s homegrown prospects.
However, Dutch boss van Gaal told United’s website on Tuesday: “I shall take a lot of youngsters with us to the USA.
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“They have the chance to show themselves and then we shall wait and observe how they can develop,” added the manager, whose side will play four matches against Club America, San Jose Earthquakes, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain in next month’s International Champions Cup.
“You get your chances always, especially in pre-season and, when you grab that chance, you have maybe the possibility to join us next season.”
United’s Under-21s won their league last season but van Gaal said it was more important to produce a limited number of first team players than a successful youth squad.
“A championship for the second team is fantastic but I think one player every year in the first-team as a line-up player is much more important,” he said.
Last season, Van Gaal’s first at Old Trafford, saw United finish fourth in the Premier League and so enter the qualifying round for the lucrative Champions League.
United’s failure to quality for any sort of European football under former manager David Moyes led to the Scot’s sacking and his replacement at Old Trafford by van Gaal.