Manchester United are due to take on Liverpool in Bangkok in the first of six pre-season games, kicking off on 12 July.
With Erik ten Hag having spent two weeks with at least some members of his new squad, he has been getting a feel as to how he would like the side to shape up heading into his first season managing in English football.
A sacred tradition that the club and many fans alike would want to see Ten Hag continue is the integration of youth both during pre-season and throughout the year.
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With the club participating in next season’s Europa League competition, there is certainly ample opportunity for the Dutchman to use some of the younger members of his squad, as well as in the earlier rounds of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, should he want to rest some of his more senior players.
The flight to pre-season contained several of the club’s up-and-coming players. Out of the 31 players who traveled to Bangkok, 10 of them can be considered as ‘young players’ who are yet to break into the first-team mold.
This includes the likes of Nathan Bishop, Ethan Laird, Hannibal Mejbri and James Garner.
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Erik ten Hag famously puts a lot of trust in youth when they can prove their worth to him, most notably pairing Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt in the Dutch manager’s famed 2018/19 Ajax squad, with the latter captaining the side all the way to a Champions League semi-final and the Dutch title at just age 19.
Ahead of the club’s fixture against Liverpool, Erik ten Hag has been speaking to club media about what he wants to see from the young players over the period of ‘Tour 2022’.
“What I want to see is that they learn but also they show themselves because they have to deserve a position in top football," he insisted.
"You have to deserve your position. It means you have to deliver every day, that demands a certain style, a certain way of life that they have to adapt to, that they probably don’t know yet.”
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He is spot on. Regardless of how talented a player one can be, if they cannot earn their position in the squad via working hard and putting in tireless effort to prove they deserve that spot, they will not earn it.
A brilliant example of this is Anthony Elanga, who broke into the side last season. The young Swede has put hours of work in the gym to build up his physique in order to cope with the demands of the Premier League, and had this effort rewarded with 27 appearances last season, playing a total of 1,446 minutes.
"But I am really looking forward to seeing if they can do it," he explained.
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"I hope one or two, they can prove themselves and they come into the squad but, if they want to enter the dressing room, they have to deserve it.”
One name on everybody’s lips last season was young sensation Alejandro Garnacho.
His stellar performances for both Manchester United’s U18s and Argentina’s U18s earned him both his first international call up for the senior squad and his debut for United towards the back end of last season.
He was wonderful during the club’s FA Youth Cup run, scoring twice in the final to help earn the side victory in the competition for the first time since the famed 2011 squad that contained Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Adnan Januzaj and Ravel Morrison.
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Another who will be looking to impress after a successful season last season is Hannibal. The Tunisian midfielder has become a mainstay in his national side already, being part of the sides that firstly came runners up in the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, before the country won the Kirin Cup in Japan last month.
He has also made his debut for the club, playing a total of three times in the Premier League so far.
Erik ten Hag’s men start off their pre-season campaign against the aforementioned Liverpool on 12 July, before heading off to Australia to play three more fixtures.
Facing off against Melbourne Victory and fellow Premier League sides Crystal Palace and Aston Villa, the club then flies back to Europe to play Atletico Madrid in Norway’s Oslo on 30 July, with a final fixture against Rayo Vallecano set to take place the following day at Old Trafford.
The Premier League season then kicks off with the Old Trafford side taking on Brighton & Hove Albion on the opening weekend.
Topics: Manchester United, Erik Ten Hag, Anthony Elanga, Shola Shoretire, Alejandro Garnacho, Football
Dylan Penketh