Post by Sky Sports 1 on Jul 15, 2006 12:05:07 GMT
With United’s squad missing the players that participated in the World Cup in Germany over the summer, a number of promising youngsters will get the chance to prove their worth on the South Africa tour.
Sir Alex Ferguson named an 18-man squad for the tour, many of whom have little or no first team experience to date, and he’s backing them to show their worth.
“We came here in 1993 with one or two unknown players… like David Beckham,” he said at a press conference in Durban.
“It happens with football teams like ourselves where we produce our own young players. Some of the players who are with us you may not know but you will do so in five years time.
“They are young players and we’re very very hopeful about them. They are ambitious young players. They have the talent and a good temperament to playing the games.
“What we don’t know is how they are going to fair in the big competitions because they’ve not got any experience of that. But they have got ability and one or two of them may play tomorrow, others will be substitutes.
“They’ll all play a part in the three games we have and therefore you’ll be able to judge them better at the end of the ten days and not before it.”
Asked to name the players that most impress him the boss singled out seven in particular.
“Of the ones who will start tomorrow there’s Phil Bardsley who is 21 this month. He played a few games last year before we loaned him out to Burnley at the tail end of the season. He’s a local boy and a very very good prospect. Then there’s the goalkeeper Ben Foster - everyone is quite excited about.
“Of the younger ones who I think have great potential. There’s the young boy David Jones. We farmed him out to Heerenveen in Holland last year and he did very well, scoring something like 8 goals in the last part of the season.
“There’s Chris Eagles who was at Watford and did very well, helping them to promotion.
“A young boy who starred in the youth team is Darron Gibson, a northern Ireland boy. Johnny Evans is another Northern Ireland boy and was also in the youth team. Those two are very excellent prospects.
“And we have the young boy from China, Dong Fangzhou. At this moment in time he’s at Royal Antwerp until he can get his European passport or can get enough caps for China so that we can apply for a work permit.
“So these are the young ones who will do well,” he said.
Ryan Giggs is the only player to have been on the Reds last visit to South Africa, back in 1993. He too has been impressed by the potential of his younger team mates.
“They’ve all got ability but it’s making that step from the youth team to the reserves to the first team. The way they’ve progressed through the youth system means that they play the game the right way and it’s just how they progress both physically and mentally,” said the Welshman.
“We’ve got five or six players here who are very promising and we hope that they progress not just this season but in the next couple of seasons.”
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Sir Alex Ferguson named an 18-man squad for the tour, many of whom have little or no first team experience to date, and he’s backing them to show their worth.
“We came here in 1993 with one or two unknown players… like David Beckham,” he said at a press conference in Durban.
“It happens with football teams like ourselves where we produce our own young players. Some of the players who are with us you may not know but you will do so in five years time.
“They are young players and we’re very very hopeful about them. They are ambitious young players. They have the talent and a good temperament to playing the games.
“What we don’t know is how they are going to fair in the big competitions because they’ve not got any experience of that. But they have got ability and one or two of them may play tomorrow, others will be substitutes.
“They’ll all play a part in the three games we have and therefore you’ll be able to judge them better at the end of the ten days and not before it.”
Asked to name the players that most impress him the boss singled out seven in particular.
“Of the ones who will start tomorrow there’s Phil Bardsley who is 21 this month. He played a few games last year before we loaned him out to Burnley at the tail end of the season. He’s a local boy and a very very good prospect. Then there’s the goalkeeper Ben Foster - everyone is quite excited about.
“Of the younger ones who I think have great potential. There’s the young boy David Jones. We farmed him out to Heerenveen in Holland last year and he did very well, scoring something like 8 goals in the last part of the season.
“There’s Chris Eagles who was at Watford and did very well, helping them to promotion.
“A young boy who starred in the youth team is Darron Gibson, a northern Ireland boy. Johnny Evans is another Northern Ireland boy and was also in the youth team. Those two are very excellent prospects.
“And we have the young boy from China, Dong Fangzhou. At this moment in time he’s at Royal Antwerp until he can get his European passport or can get enough caps for China so that we can apply for a work permit.
“So these are the young ones who will do well,” he said.
Ryan Giggs is the only player to have been on the Reds last visit to South Africa, back in 1993. He too has been impressed by the potential of his younger team mates.
“They’ve all got ability but it’s making that step from the youth team to the reserves to the first team. The way they’ve progressed through the youth system means that they play the game the right way and it’s just how they progress both physically and mentally,” said the Welshman.
“We’ve got five or six players here who are very promising and we hope that they progress not just this season but in the next couple of seasons.”
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