United youngsters in demand this summer
Manchester United's young players are certainly in demand this summer with more than 60 clubs making contact in a bid to set up potential loan moves.
In an exclusive interview, Academy player performance manager Les Parry, who looks after the loanees, revealed one Red has over 20 teams keen to acquire his services ahead of the 2021/22 campaign.
However, decisions are still to be made on certain individuals, with some required for the first-team pre-season due to a number of Euro 2020 stars reporting back late.
Parry reveals summer enquiries
Les Parry discusses how the loan operation works at United over the close season...
Providing more great insight into his role and the process that takes place behind the scenes at the Aon Training Complex, Parry revealed the ongoing discussions and explained that things can change very quickly in football.
“It is going to be massive, the loan market, this year because of finances at other clubs,” he told us.
“It’ll be the same, we’re talking to other clubs and, hopefully, the ideal way it works is we get all of the interest from different clubs in, look at them and sift through them to see the best fit for each player’s needs. It doesn’t always work like that, to be quite honest, especially late on when a player might only have one club interested and the choice then is just take it or leave it. But it is a really busy time and we’ve got about 60 clubs at the moment who have contacted us about various players, probably more than that actually, and that’s the task we’ve got between now and the end of July really.
“The added complication this year is a lot of the [first-team] lads will not be back so the manager will take some of the younger lads on the pre-season.”
When asked if the whole market is a moveable feast depending on various factors falling into place, he replied: “Very much so. We have players, for instance, that the manager has not yet made a decision on whether they can go out or not. They will go on the pre-season and we’ve got five or six; well, in the case of one player, 20-odd clubs are interested in him.
“They’ll be holding on and holding on but the manager will make the decisions after the pre-season. Others can also come up on the blind side. There might be players who go with the first team and the manager is thinking, at this point in time, they can go on loan but, suddenly, he sees them at close hand, and it might be one back from a loan, and think alright, I’ll keep hold of him for six months and have a closer look.
“It changes all the time. It really does change all the time.”
There were many success stories last term and Les has been meeting to provide detailed reports on those who furthered their experience at other clubs over the course of the campaign.
“It’s gone really well," he added. "As you say, it takes a lot of time, especially in the present climate, to go and visit each manager and have a chat about how every player has done. At the same time, we sit down with the player and do the reflections of the loan and then send a report to the coaches and manager as well with stats and everything.
“We put a package together for every loan player. So although the season has ended it’s been probably the busiest part of the season for us.”