Ninety-seven percent of Premier League academy players never make a single top-flight appearance. Those who drop out of elite environments can struggle to adapt to the different demands of the lower leagues. Manchester United’s professional development phase players, however, are finding out about life away from Carrington. Youngsters have been sent to train for up to a month at a time with lower-league clubs to open their eyes to the wider football world and enrich their education.
“If a player is in our programme from a really young age to 19, 20, they have only ever seen one version of what football looks like and the version at Manchester United is very different from what it might look like in the rest of the world,” United’s head of academy, Nick Cox, says.
