This used to be the time of year when Old Trafford was buzzing with title talk. These days it’s simply entitlement.
When Ruben Amorim tackled the issue among Manchester United’s young players before Sunday’s defeat at Aston Villa, he highlighted a culture that has caused concern at the club for some time now: How do you dangle the dream of Premier League stardom in front of kids and then expect them not to believe their own hype?
It’s a challenge for United’s coaching staff from the academy to the first team, and one that would have been all-too-familiar to Jonny Evans in his brief spell as loans manager, responsible for finding a temporary home for the club’s emerging talent.
Evans did the job for six months before quitting two weeks ago. The man who did it for six years is sat across the table in a cafe on the Wirral peninsula explaining how hard it is to manage expectations and keep young egos in check.
Les Parry assumed so many roles during his 12-year association with United that he describes himself as ‘Polyfilla’.
A youth-team coach who has seen academy jewels like Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood and Kobbie Mainoo come through the system, and used his expertise in sports science to help bring United’s academy resources into the 21st century. The head of elite player development, a key figure in the formation of the women’s team and, finally, the club’s first loans manager until he left 14 months ago.
Les Parry (middle row, third from right) helped to grow Manchester United’s best young talents, as head of elite player development and loans manager
Parry rose up from physiotherapist to interim manager to permanent boss at Tranmere before joining United in January 2013
So how would he describe the sense of entitlement that has irked Amorim?
Parry replies: ‘If you’re giving a talk to the Under 16s and you say, “There’s 30 of you and only two of you will play for the first team”, every single player in the room is thinking, “I wonder who the other one is?”.
‘You can tell a 16-year-old, “You’re going to end up playing in the Conference” or whatever, say it all the b****y hell you want, but they’re not going to have it. You stress that if they’re lucky, they will end up playing in League One and League Two. We tried to lead them down that path because that’s where most of them are.
‘I think they’re good players and I watched enough of them to have an idea about what a Manchester United player might…