Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
James Findlater

'Best in England' - Ex-coach tells Manchester United what they're getting in Brighton wonderkid

Manchester United-bound teenager Toby Collyer has been described as the 'best defensive midfielder in England' at under-18 level.

The Brighton wonderkid looks set to join United this summer, with the likes of Chelsea and West Ham missing out on his signature. The 18-year-old is out of contract with the Seagulls at the end of the season and has already trained with United ahead of his move to Old Trafford.

Collyer has captained England at under-16 and under-17 level, and made his debut for Brighton’s under-18s at the age of just 15. Former coach Mark Beard has tipped the youngster to become a 'top-class player' as he prepares for his move to Manchester.

ALSO READ: Manchester United wantaways are doing club a favour ahead of rebuild

"I was working with the under-15s and under-16s and he was in the under-12s or 13s. I got to coach him once a week then. He rose through the ages and I went up to the under-18s," Beard told Sussex Live.

"Even when he was an under-15 he trained with us [the under-18s] a lot. Even though he didn't play a great deal at under-16 he still trained. You could see he was going to be a top-class player.

"He is a pleasure to coach. He is so low maintenance, what I mean by that is you don't know he is there. He gets on with his job. He regularly put in displays of 8/10 at the least. He had the best running stats, runs 13 kilometres a game, breaks things up. He is so unassuming, he gets on with his job.

"You want 11 of these type of players in the team. You know what you're going to get in training, he works hard, he wants to improve, he's intelligent. He's a good all-round kid."

Describing what United will be getting, Beard added: "He is more of a defensive midfielder but we tried to get a bit more out of him. In training, he would do a one vs one exercise and he could do it so easily so we just wanted him to add that to his game.

"So rather than just sideways passing or good quality forward passing, just have a little dribble because he was very good at travelling with the ball as well. We tried getting that into him."

He added: "The two things I wanted to work with him on were his dribbling, driving out and having confidence on the ball, and the second was in 50/50 tackles. He wouldn't pull out of it but the other player might want it more.

"As good as he is defensively, he still needs to work on the timing and the strength of his tackling to really go to another level."

Sign up to our United newsletter so you never miss an update from Old Trafford this season.

Catch up on all the latest Reds headlines in our Man United section

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.