1. Gary Woods
2. David Gray (17. Oliver Norwood ‘76)
3. Jimmy Derbyshire (18. Oliver Gill ‘46)
4. Craig Cathcart
5. James Chester
6. Rodrigo Possebon (12. Kenny Strickland ‘81)
7. Magnus Eikrem (15. Cameron Stewart ‘46)
8. Daniel Drinkwater (14. Matty James ‘62)
9. Federico Macheda
10. Tom Cleverley (c)
11. Sam Hewson (16. Evandro Brandão ‘62)
Unused Sub:
13. Conor Devlin
Woods
Gray - Chester - Cathcart - Derbyshire
Eikrem - Drinkwater - Possebon - Cleverley
Hewson
Macheda
Events off the field may have somewhat overshadowed those on it, but for 84 minutes at Moss Lane there was a very good United performance and a very watchable encounter to enjoy for those in the crowd who actually came to take in a football match. A first-half brace from Federico Macheda and another stunning long-range strike from Rodrigo Possebon had established a 3-0 lead for the Reds before the game was brought to a premature close with five minutes remaining after a group of spectators purporting to be United fans stormed the pitch and got involved in confrontations with Altrincham players, forcing the referee to abandon the contest. More on that later, but let’s focus on the football for now.
After last week’s win over Blue Square North Burscough, tomorrow sees the Reds play the first of two games against Blue Square Premier opposition. Oxford United are to come next weekend but the short journey to the reserves’ former home, Altrincham FC’s Moss Lane ground, is next on the agenda. United won 2-1 at Moss Lane almost exactly a year ago with goals from Kieran Lee and Sean Evans.
Ole Solskjaer’s squad will be bolstered by the return of Sam Hewson and Gary Woods from first team duty last weekend, but much of the interest in tomorrow’s game will be concerning Fábio and Rafael. The Brazilian twins were on the bench last week in Burscough but weren’t named in the matchday squad, and their first appearance in the red shirt (or white/black as the case may be tomorrow) is eagerly anticipated by many.
Ticket prices for tomorrow match are £7 adults and £2 Under 14’s/OAP’s. Getting to Moss Lane from Manchester is exceptionally easy - Altrincham is of course served by the Metrolink, as well as regular trains and buses, and Moss Lane is a ten-minute walk from the central interrchange. You can view directions here. We will of course have a full match report on United Youth after the game.
The past seven days have been kind to United’s emerging custodians. Edwin van der Sar’s post-Euro 2008 vacation, Tom Heaton’s loan to Cardiff and Ron-Robert Zieler’s participation in the Euro U19 Finals with Germany has had something of a knock-on effect, elevating younger keepers up the pecking order into games they would otherwise have stood no chance of being involved in.
The most obvious beneficiary has been Ben Amos. With everyone present and correct the 18 year-old would have been competing with two others for game-time in the reserves’ friendlies, but events conspired to give him a first team ‘debut’ (albeit non-competitive) last weekend at Aberdeen. To say he seized the opportunity with both hands or put in a blinding performance would be an exaggeration as in all honesty he had very little to do, but what he did have to do he did with utmost competence, and the England U18 stopper didn’t look at all out of place.
Even better news was then to come in midweek, when Thursday saw Ben named in the 21-man travelling party for the Reds’ pre-season tour of South Africa and Nigeria. Ben goes on tour as clear third-choice keeper behind Ben Foster and Tomasz Kuszczak and, with those two competing for the understudy job this season (and potentially their United futures) he may well struggle to get much time on the field of play, but regardless, the experience of going on tour with the first-team, training with them every day and participating in the community projects the squad take part in on these jaunts can only be an incredibly good thing for the youngster’s development.
Similar story for Gary Woods (well, bar the South Africa part). The seventeen year-old got seventeen priceless first-team minutes under his belt in Scotland last Saturday as substitute when a more typical set of circumstances would have probably seen him not playing in a match until the Under 18’s take on Bury in August. What’s more, Amos’ first-team call-up makes Woods first in line for reserve glove duty, and he should start in nets for at least the next two games (against Altrincham and Oxford).
And the knock-on effect extends even further. Conor Devlin’s apprenticeship only began at the start of the month and he is yet to even play for the Under 18’s, but last Saturday saw him between the sticks for the reserves at Burscough. The 16 year old from Northern Ireland is expected to deputise for Woods in the forthcoming reserve games. Devlin’s deputy at Burscough got a massive and unexpected opportunity also - Sam Johnstone will spend most of this season keeping goal for the Under 16’s, so twenty minutes of senior football for the reserves will have been a great experience for the 15 year-old.
As mentioned above, one of the reasons for the above quartet rising up the pecking order is Ron-Robert Zieler being otherwise engaged at the UEFA U19 European Championships in the Czech Republic. And he’s doing rather well too - Germany made it two wins from two in the group stage with a 3-0 victory over Bulgaria yesterday (Dennis Diekmeier, Savio Nsereko and Lars Bender with the goals) in a game that RRZ could probably have kept a clean sheet in whilst asleep. Qualification for the semi-finals is now assured for the Germans and, with the holders and big favourites Spain surprisingly already eliminated, a real opportunity to win this tournament for the first time ever is looming large.
Few snippets of news from the past few days that you may (or indeed may not) have missed…
~ United’s sole representative at the U19 Euros got off to a winning start in Plzen this evening as Ron-Robert Zieler’s Germany side overcame the holders and favourites Spain 2-1 in their opening group match. Zieler was preferred to Energie Cottbus’ Tom Mickel in goal and had little to do as Spain laboured in attack. In contrast, the young Germans built a deserved 2-0 lead with goals early in each half from Richard Sukuta-Pasu and Ömer Toprak, and had enough in the tank to comfortably hold on even after Zieler was beaten by a Jordi Alba strike midway through the second period.
Germany’s shock win will have raised hopes of success in a tournament they have never won, and their next game is on Thursday evening against Bulgaria. News on that (and more specifically RRZ’s involvement) in due course.
As I write, England are in action against the Czechs in the opening game of the 2008 U19 European Championships, but Danny Welbeck isn’t there in Jablonec with them after an injury forced the 17 year-old striker to withdraw from the squad on the eve of the tournament.
The exact nature of the injury hasn’t been revealed as yet, but while rumours suggest there is no long-term problem, a decision had to be made on Friday regarding the young Mancunian’s availability for the two week tournament with the squad set to depart for the Czech Republic the following day. Clearly it was decided that Danny wouldn’t be able to participate fully and coach Brian Eastick turned to his standby list for a replacement.
Ironically, that replacement was very nearly Danny’s United team-mate (and indeed school-mate) Febian Brandy. Brandy was part of the squad at the U19’s three day training camp last week and was one of two options Eastick deliberated over, the other being Bolton’s Tope Obadeyi.
“Both Tope and Febian Brandy looked very good at the three day training camp we had last week. When Daniel was withdrawn, it was a difficult decision for me who to take between Febian or Tope. I brought Tope in primarily because there is a slight doubt about Daniel Sturridge so if he were to deteriorate in the next two or three days then at least we have a similar type of forward here to come in. But it is nice to have the quality of these players on standby.”
That leaves just one United player as a participant in the tournament, Germany’s Ron-Robert Zieler. The young goalkeeper is competing for the starting role with Energie Cottbus’ Tom Mickel, with Germany kicking off their campaign against Spain this evening (6.30pm BST) in a match that is being screened live on Eurosport.
1. Conor Devlin (13. Sam Johnstone ‘69)
2. David Gray (c)
3. Richard Eckersley (14. Reece Brown ‘29)
4. Craig Cathcart
5. James Chester
6. Rodrigo Possebon
7. Magnus Eikrem (12. Jimmy Derbyshire ‘59)
8. Daniel Drinkwater (15. Matty James ‘69)
9. Febian Brandy
10. Tom Cleverley
11. Federico Macheda (16. Joshua King ‘46)
Devlin
Gray - Chester - Cathcart - Eckersley
Drinkwater - Possebon - Cleverley - Eikrem
Brandy - Macheda
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign as reserve manager got off to a fine start at Victoria Park as the Reds ran out deserved 3-1 winners against a competitive and physically imposing Burscough side. Goals from Tom Cleverley, Febian Brandy and Rodrigo Possebon were enough to secure a comfortable victory over the Blue Square North team, who got some reward for a determined display with a late consolation from David Brookes.
The season starts here then. Near enough two months on from the Manchester Senior Cup victory that brought last season to a successful close, the reserves are set to take to the field for the first time in a new campaign as the all-new management team of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Warren Joyce take their charges to Burscough for the first in a triple-header of Saturday friendlies designed to get the team into their stride ahead of the Lancashire Senior Cup Final against Liverpool at the end of the month.
Hot on the heels of the academy fixtures being released, the reserve team’s schedule for the forthcoming season has been announced on manutd.com.
The campaign gets underway with a home fixture against Blackburn Rovers on September 18th at the Marstons Arena, home to Blue Square Premier side Northwich Victoria and, for a second season, United’s reserves. The first mini-derby comes on October 21st at the Regional Athletics Arena, with City making the return trip to Northwich on February 26th (new reserve boss Ole Solskjaer’s birthday, for those fond of fairly pointless trivia). Clashes with reigning champions Liverpool (don’t hear that said often) fall on November 6th (home) and March 10th (away).
The most interesting aspect of the fixtures announcement is the slight increase in the number of games, up from 18 last season to 20 this year. This is due to a slightly bizarre rejigging of the two Premier Reserve League divisions. All three teams relegated from the Premier League last season (Reading, Derby and Birmingham City) played in the PRL South, but while promoted West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City take the place of two of those sides, Hull City have been placed in the PRL North, boosting that division to 11 teams and leaving the Southern section with just nine.
There’s been no official reasoning given by this, but it seems likely that it’s purely geographical - placing Hull in the southern half wouldn’t have worked logistically, and that pretty much applies to all 11 teams in the northern section, with probably the two Merseyside clubs being the southernmost. Whatever the reasoning, a couple of extra games can only be good news for United and all the northern clubs.
You can view the full reserves fixture list here. The second string get their pre-season programme underway this Saturday with a game against Blue Square North outfit Burscough - we’ll have a short preview up soon and full coverage of the match up on Saturday evening.
If you can overlook the somewhat bizarre choice of soundtrack (a soppy Britney Spears ballad as backing music for a football compilation? Hey, who am I to judge…), this video offers quite an interesting insight into the type of player Davide Petrucci is and what we can expect to see from him over the ensuing months and hopefully years. Credit to mirio88 for the YouTube upload.
With the new season rapidly approaching (I will have a full review of last season up at some point over the next week, promise), the fixture list for United’s academy side has been released on manutd.com. The U18’s will kick off the new campaign with a rare trip to the capital to face West Ham on August 23rd, before welcoming Norwich City to Carrington a week later for the first home fixture.
As always, the games you typically look for as a United fan are those against City and Liverpool. The scousers come to Carrington in late October before successive December matchdays see United entertain City and then travel to Liverpool’s Melwood training ground, whilst the trip to Platt Lane to face our neighbours will see no love lost on Valentines Day.
The U18’s will be looking to improve upon their third-placed finish in Group C last season, and will be particularly hoping to go much further in the FA Youth Cup after a humiliating early exit in 07/08. Manager Paul McGuinness told manutd.com - “We had a stop-start season, but all the players will come back older and wiser. You learn from experience, good or bad. There were good experiences, but we also lost three games by five goals. That shouldn’t happen to our teams.”
The past seven days have been kind to United’s emerging custodians. Edwin van der Sar’s post-Euro 2008 vacation, Tom Heaton’s loan to Cardiff and Ron-Robert Zieler’s participation in the Euro U19 Finals with Germany has had something of a knock-on effect, elevating younger keepers up the pecking order into games they would otherwise have stood no chance of being involved in.
~ United’s sole representative at the U19 Euros got off to a winning start in Plzen this evening as Ron-Robert Zieler’s Germany side overcame the holders and favourites Spain 2-1 in their opening group match. Zieler was preferred to Energie Cottbus’ Tom Mickel in goal and had little to do as Spain laboured in attack. In contrast, the young Germans built a deserved 2-0 lead with goals early in each half from Richard Sukuta-Pasu and Ömer Toprak, and had enough in the tank to comfortably hold on even after Zieler was beaten by a Jordi Alba strike midway through the second period. 
As I write, England are in action against the Czechs in the opening game of the 2008 U19 European Championships, but Danny Welbeck isn’t there in Jablonec with them after an injury forced the 17 year-old striker to withdraw from the squad on the eve of the tournament. 
The season starts here then. Near enough two months on from the Manchester Senior Cup victory that brought last season to a successful close, the reserves are set to take to the field for the first time in a new campaign as the all-new management team of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Warren Joyce take their charges to Burscough for the first in a triple-header of Saturday friendlies designed to get the team into their stride ahead of the Lancashire Senior Cup Final against Liverpool at the end of the month.