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Manchester United fans have had plenty to lament since the club’s decline following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement at the end of the 2012-13 season.
Not only has the club fallen from its standing at the pinnacle of English football, but the new co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has almost matched the Glazer family’s unpopularity.
Last season saw United finish in a disappointing 15th place in the Premier League and end their season with a poor defeat against Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League final in Bilbao.
A key part of United’s storied legacy has been its reliance on homegrown talent from their youth academy, particularly local players passionate about representing their hometown club.
This tradition was perhaps best exemplified by the Busby Babes, the extraordinary young team tragically dismantled by the Munich Air Disaster in 1958, which instilled great pride among fans.
Manchester United have endured a lot of pain since Sir Alex Ferguson retired – but they always had one thing to cling to
Breaking ties with the United academy would go against everything that defines the club’s greatness, a principle firmly established by historic teams like the Busby Babes.
Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton and Roger Byrne were all part of that tradition. Later, George Best would come up through the youth ranks, too.
And the most recent spell of sustained success under Ferguson was peopled by the famous Class of 92, players such as Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and, earlier, Ryan Giggs, who all played in the youth team.
I can relate. When I had a spell going home and away with United in the early to mid 80s, Norman Whiteside was my favourite player, partly because of his youth and the fact he had come over from Northern Ireland and been brought through the academy.
It is little wonder that so much satisfaction is taken in the fact that it is now 4,323 consecutive games with a United academy graduate featuring in the first-team matchday squad. The run goes back 88 years to October 1937 and continued at Fulham on Sunday.
But amid all the setbacks United fans have had to contend with, there are now real concerns that the run of youth team representation may be about to be broken.
There were no youth-team graduates in the United first XI at Craven Cottage. Kobbie Mainoo and another academy product, Tyler Fredricson, were unused subs.
It feels as if, in Ruben Amorim’s desperation to turn around the club’s fortunes, he is on the brink of betraying one of its greatest traditions and snapping the link between the academy and the first team that nourishes so much of the United legend.
When Mainoo, who is still only 20, broke into the first team in late 2023, he was regarded as a star of the future, a player who would be a fixture at United for the next decade. He was a beacon of local pride. England selection followed. He was an important member of the Euro 2024 squad.
Ruben Amorim risks making a huge mistake if he sells Kobbie Mainoo, one of the last remaining United academy graduates in the first-team squad
United’s booming global success was built on the success of the Class of 92 – one of the greatest ever academy cohorts
But he has been largely ignored since Amorim arrived and his exclusion fits a pattern.
In the last two years, academy graduates Marcus Rashford, Jonny Evans, Scott McTominay, Willy Kambwala, Hannibal Mejbri and Omari Forson have all parted ways with the club.
Alejandro Garnacho, another who once seemed to have a bright future at the club, has been ostracised and is expected to be sold.
Mainoo’s marginalisation, though, feels more significant than all of them. Graduates from the youth team have always been the lifeblood of United more than at any other leading side.
For supporters, there is nothing like the thrill of a local lad doing well. It hits deeper.
At a time when many fans of Premier League clubs feel they are losing their connection with their players, the presence of youth team graduates preserves that connection and strengthens it.
That is what Amorim is in danger of losing here as he pushes Mainoo towards the exit.
He is in danger of losing something more important than points and places. He is holding an umbilical cord in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.
Mainoo, seen here battling with Spain’s Fabian Ruiz, started the Euro 2024 final last year
Rasmus Hojlund, Alejandro Garnacho and Mainoo were once considered United’s future but now all three may be heading for the exit door
United fans will be hoping young players like Harry Amass, Fredricson, Toby Collyer and Ethan Wheatley will keep the tradition alive but they are way out on the periphery of Amorim’s thinking at the moment.
If Amorim does it, if he brings that sequence to an end, if he cuts the cord, I hope someone is telling him that even if United fans forgave him for finishing 15th last season, they would never forgive him for that.
Not many things are more important to fans than goals and points but this is.
If Amorim severs the storied link between the academy and the first team squad, it will be the end of him at Old Trafford.
