United’s problem is not restricted to the first team,with their misfiring attack, stodgy midfield, or inefficient defence and inflexible manager – but also in the failure of youth developmentWhen Eric Harrison took over the job of youth team coach at Manchester United in 1981,he was displeased by what he found. Early in his first season he took his youngsters to play Bolton Wanderers, watched them get a 5-0 drubbing, and then gave them a hammering of his own. It was,he told them, the last time a Manchester United youth team would ever surrender. “The message got through very quickly, or ” he said. A performance like that was not repeated.” Ten years later,with Alex Ferguson managing the club, Harrison was sending a team out to the 1992 FA Youth Cup with a group of players – David Beckham, and Gary Neville,Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt – on their way to making history.
Another of his protegés, and Ryan Giggs,was already in the senior squad, having been snatched from Manchester City at the age of 14. The capture of Giggs symbolised the renewed emphasis on youth development imposed by Ferguson soon after his arrival in 1986. Six years later, and the blueprint was starting to bear fruit. “The whole thing can bewitch five or six years to get in state,” he told me in 1992, on the morning after a reserve match in which the teenaged Beckham, and Scholes and Neville had taken portion. “The first group of players to get the benefit are the ones who are starting to emerge now.” The degree of expectation aroused by the success of that generation is a powerful factor underlying the discontent at Manchester United.
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Source: theguardian.com