Manchester United take drastic steps to close youth academy gap as Manchester City's £200m investment reaps rewards

Manchester United are undertaking a radical overhaul of their academy as they seek to wrest back ascendancy over Manchester City in the fight to sign up the best talent, with the assistant manager, Ryan Giggs, already playing an active part in attracting young players.

City’s construction of their £200m state-of-the-art football academy has let them ease ahead of United as the club of choice for Manchester parents – a status which had previously allowed the Old Trafford club to develop the fabled “Class of ’92”. But both Giggs and Nicky Butt are now sitting down with prospective signings and their parents, as part of a drive to make United more attractive, returning to a similar strategy to when club legend Brian Kidd was the recruiting officer for Sir Alex Ferguson in the early years of his tenure as manager.

United are also ready to appoint Butt to lead the football side of the United academy, with the club secretary, John Alexander, handling the administrative side and John Murtough – the highly rated head of elite performance hired during David Moyes’ brief managerial reign – also thought likely to play a part.

Questions have been asked about the seven-month period in which United have lacked an academy head, following the departure of Brian McClair to become performance director at the Scottish FA. However, the process of understanding the workings of an operation which had remained untouched for years has been complex.

United are reluctant to lose the identity of the academy and there is a desire that the “fun” of being a part of the Old Trafford club’s youth set-up is not lost. It is, though, accepted that the departure of Ferguson and his appointees has brought a substantial need for modernisation.

Not losing the soul of the set-up which delivered so much for Ferguson means that it may be late next year before the full benefits of an overhaul are seen, according to senior sources at the club.

One of the major selling points for United is the potential pathway to the first team for young players, which has become more visible during Louis van Gaal’s 18 months as manager. In that time, there have been seven first-team debutants from the academy; in the same period, City have blooded only three academy players in their own first team. Young players and their parents do want some realistic hope that first-team football is a possibility.

The club has certainly fallen well behind in its player development in the past 10 years, with a number of aspects of the academy simply not up to scratch. Scouts work only part-time, while the modernity of what City offer – from excellent facilities for parents to education to GCSE level at a local private school guaranteed even for those scholars released by the club – now far outstrips United.

There has been a need to go “elbow deep” in the analysis of where United have begun to fall short and full-time scouts seem a likely part of the future for the club. United admire the City Football Academy, which City have established on their Etihad campus, and a dedicated academy stadium for United’s scholars, like City’s in east Manchester, is thought to be one possibility.

Academy league games are generally played at United’s Carrington training base, though Altrincham’s Moss Lane ground, where the Under-21s play, is also used for matches.

McClair replaced Les Kershaw as head of United’s youth set-up in 2006 and saw 35 academy graduates break into the first team, including Danny Welbeck, Adnan Januzaj, James Wilson, Tyler Blackett and Paddy McNair.

But even Paul Scholes expressed fears in his Independent column about United’s failure to keep up with their rivals.

“Trying to look at it from a neutral perspective, I have to say that what City have achieved is impressive and their impact on the youth scene in Manchester began long before the opening of their City Football Academy,” he wrote in these pages a year ago this week.

“It has been no secret among people I know in football that City have taken great strides in their youth academy programmes, to the extent that there are even United players past and present who have, or at least once had, sons at City’s academy.

“The bigger picture is how City have upped the stakes with their new academy and training complex. United’s Carrington base is a great training ground and academy, but City have just taken theirs to another level.”