Manchester United u21s season has ended early after being eliminated from the Premier League 2 play-offs in the first round.
United took on Arsenal in the first round where they were defeated 6-2.
Travis Binnion’s side finished 12th in the regular season, which was enough to qualify for next season’s Premier League International Cup and the post-season play-offs, but the latter have come to a disappointing quick end.
Completing the season with 8 wins, 5 draws, and 7 losses, it was an up and down year for the young reds.
Inconsistent results came at the hand of an inconsistent squad, with an incredible 46 different players featuring across the season.
A mishmash of options, the squad included at times youngsters who were training with the first team, u18s players moving up and down between levels, those coming back from unsuccessful loans and even some u16s had run outs in the latter stages of the season.
As a result, no run of form could be found at any point during the season, with United failing to win more than two matches in a row at any point, but on the other hand also never losing more than twice in a row.
United’s top two goal scorers in the season, Shola Shoretire and Joe Hugill, featured very little in the second half of the campaign due to injury and going on loan, respectively. This also left the team light in attacking threat.
Sonny Aljofree was the side’s most active player during the season, playing 1,973 minutes, one of only five players to rack up over 1,000 minutes at u21s level this season.
A somewhat concerning fact, though, is that Aljofree was actually loaned out to Altrincham in the National League in January but didn’t feature a single time for the Greater Manchester club.
The scenario was a common theme amongst the group. Sam Murray and Maxi Oyedele were also loaned out in January but neither made the grade and ended up back at United quickly for the rest of the season.
Charlie McNeill was another who spent the first half of the season on a disappointing loan spell with Stevenage where he struggled to get on the pitch before returning to United in January.
The list of development mishaps could clearly signify the club’s general lack of plan for the u21s squad.
A constant changing of lineups for a variety of reasons, a series of bad loan choices, and a preference for the well-performing u18s has left a situational malaise with seemingly no solution.
Not only were the performances often turgid and disjointed on the pitch, which felt like no one wanted to be there, but roughly half of the u21s matches were not televised and many were played at training grounds with no spectators, leaving the season as not much more than a glorified training session.
As a result, despite all of the circumstances, the season can only be summed up as rather disappointing for United’s u21s, on and off the pitch.
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