Like I said, the ones who really stand out tend to operate at the other end of the pitch, and Danny Welbeck was probably the one who caught the eye more than anybody during my time covering the U18s. It’s great to see Danny coming back into the limelight with Brighton after some serious injury issues, and when he was a kid – a great lad, by the way – he was outstanding. He had a lovely playing style about him, he was so quick and he also scored plenty of goals. I remember him getting four or five in one game, I think against West Brom, and he was always great to watch.
It’s virtually impossible to say a player is nailed-on to make it into the first team, but probably the biggest surprise for me in recent years has been that James Wilson didn’t spend more time in the senior setup. He was extremely fast, a big lad, physical, scored a tonne of goals in the youth team, stepped up to the first team, scored twice on his debut and did well whenever called upon. He just had such misfortune with injuries at the wrong time that it didn’t work out for him.
The same bad luck applied to Will Keane. He and his brother Michael were in the squad that won the Youth Cup in 2011 alongside Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Ravel Morrison, Larnell Cole and the like. Will was a very intelligent young player who had bad knee problems, so it’s great to see him back scoring now for Wigan, but his example shows what has to go your way if you’re going to make it into United’s first team and hold down a place.
You have to hope that you avoid injuries, you get a chance and then when you do, not only do you have to play well, the team has to play well too and get positive results. That gives you confidence and off you go with your career.
