Ruben Amorim says the club’s long and proud record of selecting an Academy player in every matchday squad should be ‘bulletproof’.
The run, which passed the 88-year mark on 30 October, continued as Jack Fletcher was named on the bench for Saturday’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur.
The 18-year-old midfielder was the only homegrown Red involved in the capital, as Kobbie Mainoo was ruled out with a knock, while Tom Heaton and Tyler Fredricson were not part of the group.
Fletcher has trained regularly with the first-team players at Carrington and was named in several squads last term.
When asked about Jack’s inclusion, Amorim emphasised the importance of the club tradition in encouraging young players and helping their development.
“It’s really important,”
he said. “I think again we are in the moment [where] if we are going to take some corners and succeed right away, it’s the wrong thing.
“There are some things especially in our club that we need to be bulletproof.
“It’s the way we behave, the way we feel the club and all these small things. We are not going to stop with the Academy players.
“It doesn’t matter the result, it doesn’t matter anything else. We need to continue with these small details that are the foundations of our club, so we have that record.
“We are not going to break that record, and Jack is ready to help us.
“We put two things together to show people that our Academy is the future and to show the players in our Academy that they need to be ready because we are going to need them at some point. Jack is ready to help us.”
United have picked at least one Academy player in the XI or on the substitutes’ bench for every first-team fixture since an away game at Fulham in 1937.
The sequence takes in 4,333 matches and counting.