Rangnick makes Academy pledge

The interim manager handed senior debuts to two young Academy players - 18-year-olds Zidane Iqbal and Charlie Savage - in Wednesday night's 1-1 draw against Young Boys.

Each season, homegrown players are handed opportunities in the first team, with at least one Academy graduate named in every matchday squad for over 4,000 games.

Rangnick took over the helm at United less than a fortnight ago but has already shown his willingness to continue the tradition. He has explained to supporters why he thinks it's so important to do so.

"The Academies are highly important, even more so in England," Rangnick explains in our matchday Q&A, available from 10:00 GMT.

"If you look at the number of players who have developed in the last 10 years, England is probably in the top two or three in Europe for developing young, top talented players.

"We have three of them [English talents] in our own first team – with Jadon, with Mason and with Marcus. We need to make sure, in the future, every year or every other year, one or two, if not three, of those players are being good enough to perform and to play on our level.”

With the first team's fixture list as busy as ever over the festive period, there may not be much time for anything but preparing for them, although Rangnick has insisted he will make space in his schedule to watch the Academy sides in action.

“Yeah, I will try to watch as many games as I possibly can," Rangnick revealed.

"Next Friday, there is a big game of the Under-23s against Chelsea, so we have already spoken about that.

"I will try to watch that game and some, two or three, of our [first-team] players will also be able to get game-time again there in that game."

It will be interesting to see who is on show against Blues in Premier League 2 next week.