Lifeblood: How to watch episode two - Innovation

'Innovation' is the second film in the set, and while the first one featured Alejandro Garnacho, the brand new instalment stars his fellow graduate, Scott McTominay.

The United and Scotland midfielder returns to the Academy building at Carrington, to learn about the advancements in sports science that have happened in the seven years since he emerged through the Reds' youth ranks to make his senior debut in May 2017.

McTominay also talks very frankly and passionately about his own journey into elite football, and the challenges he had to overcome at times due to the delayed development in his physicality.

Scott admits in the episode that he felt physically behind some of his peers during his mid-teens.

"When I got to 15 or 16, I couldn't even pass the ball sideways because I was in too much pain," he recalls.

"I'd go home and say to my dad, 'What's happening here because this isn't right?'

"You'd get so much reassurance from the club. 'Take it easy, you're just going through a stage.'

"But when you're that age, you don't realise what you're involved with. That was a tough time, probably two or three years when I didn't kick a ball, not one ball, from 15 to 17-and-a-half, nearly 18."

While McTominay is now managed by Erik ten Hag and his senior team staff, the documentary goes behind the scenes to meet some of the dedicated and driven personnel who care for the current scholars who aspire to follow in Scott's footsteps.

The film's presenter and narrator, Harry Robinson, speaks to Nick Cox, Director of Academy, and his colleagues such as Matt Walker, Head of Performance, and Dan Ransom, Lead Academy Psychologist. But the innovations discussed in the documentary are not confined to equipment, technology and coaching techniques. 

One of the pioneering aspects featured in the half-hour show is the Academy's Alumni programme, which provides a compassionate connection with the club for its graduates who have gone on to pastures new and, in some cases, different careers, having hung up their boots.