A bright Future Ahead

United Damu
Sep 22, 2015
2 min read

The future of Manchester United

September 22, 2015

United Damu

Louis Van Gaal's comments before the Southampton match were true and very encouraging for Manchester United.

“Southampton have a very good youth system, but I believe in that sort of culture too,” the United manager said.

“This club has always been famous for giving young players a chance and we have to continue with that policy.

When you see us in the Champions League with Shaw, at 19 years of age, Memphis, 21, and Anthony Martial, 19, it is clear we have the same aims.

If you look at my career you can see I have brought a lot of young players through, not only that but major players who went on to be important at their clubs.

At Barcelona, Xavi, captain. Iniesta, captain. The backbone of the club and the culture.

At Bayern Munich there is Thomas Müller, David Alaba and Holger Badstuber.

Bastian Schweinsteiger is now out, but the other three are still the guardians of the culture of Bayern Munich.

Maybe when I am gone, Shaw or Adnan Januzaj will be the guardians of the culture here at Manchester United.

Or it could even be Martial, but first he has to learn to speak the English language.”

This is all very true for Van Gaal, whose success in previous clubs makes his statements ring true.

Just as he spoke after bringing in Anthony Martial, LVG has the club's future well at hand. “Ideally you want to bring up a player within the traditions of the club, and invest the time needed in his development,” he said.

“There is a certain amount of risk in that, and of course it is easier to buy big, established stars, but as we saw last season big stars can also fail.

That is why I always think it is better to invest in young players, even if they end up being more for the benefit of the next manager rather than yourself.”

And that is the future.