Man Utd women's boss Marc Skinner has urged his club to make the most of Mary Earps' recent success at the FIFA Best awards.
United and England No.1 Earps was awarded the FIFA Best women's goalkeeper in Paris on Monday after playing an important part in The Lionesses winning Euro 2022 and United's WSL title challenge. Although Earps has taken her career onto new heights at the Red Devils, she isn't a product of the clubs' academy and was signed from German giants VfL Wolfsburg in 2019.
But Skinner wants his club to use Earps' success as a springboard to inspire young goalkeepers from the local area. Earps has kept the most clean sheets in the WSL this season, with nine to date.
Skinner said: "I think what it says is there is a platform here at United, for you to go on to produce the qualities.
"You still have to do what Mary has done, which is to produce the qualities every day that make her better. But there is always an opportunity.
"What I think the power in it is, and I think Ian (Willcock, United’s goalkeeping coach) is going to try to capitalise on this, is that especially within England, especially within the local Manchester area, is to try to grow our own Mary Earps going forward, to promote that young players, who I’m sure she has inspired, can go on to aspire to be like Mary."
Since reforming and winning promotion to the top flight in 2018-19, United have had to recruit established talent to bolster their squad. But Skinners' comments could indicate a shift in policy towards harnessing youth development, historically a cornerstone of the United men's side.
"It's a wonderful achievement and thoroughly deserved," Skinner added. "You never know how these awards are going to go, and whether the best person actually wins the award. But in this case, she (Earps) certainly did.
"She brought it in this morning, the girls gave her a huge round of applause. They’ve all been in contact throughout anyway. And I felt the speech she gave afterwards was truly beautiful.
"We’ve got her some flowers and just made a real fuss of her, because she absolutely deserves it. Her ability to win things like that just cements the quality she has."
During her acceptance speech in Paris, Earps said; "This is for anyone who has ever been in a dark place, just know that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Keep going, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
"Sometimes success looks like this, collecting trophies, sometimes it's just waking up and putting one step in front of the other. There's only one of the you in the world, and that's more than good enough. Be unapologetically yourself.
"Thank you everyone."
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