Shoretire has now got the taste for more

The forward came on in the 89th minute of the Premier League win at Old Trafford to enter the club’s history books as the seventh-youngest debutant for the Reds at 17 years and 19 days old.

Our Academy product has been with United since he was 10, after moving to Manchester from Newcastle, where he had been at the famous north-east Wallsend Boys' Club that had also produced our former midfielder and current first-team coach Michael Carrick.

Having taken Shoretire on the trip to Turin last week for our last-32 Europa League first-leg win against Real Sociedad, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer brought him on for Marcus Rashford against the Magpies. 

“Shola has been training with us now for a while and he’s done really well. It was the next step up for him,” said the boss.

“We felt, of course in the transfer window last time, we let a few players go out on loan, which made the path for him shorter and I’m sure he’ll remember his five or six minutes on the pitch tonight.”

Shoretire is the latest in a long list of United’s home-produced talent to progress to the first-team.

“It’s in our DNA, it’s what we do at Man United and it’s important that our kids know that when they’re good enough, they’re old enough,” said Solskjaer.

 

Naturally, Shoretire was delighted with his first taste of senior action.

“It feels great. It is such a proud moment for me and my family. I’ve worked so hard to get here and my mum and my dad. I have been at the club since I was 10 and it is a dream come true to be playing for the biggest club in the world,” Shola said in his first interview with us.

“Obviously, it is what I want to do now. Doing the thing that I love, playing football for the best club in the world, and I want to carry on.

“Everyone in the Academy idolises Marcus [Rashford] and Mason [Greenwood]. They have gone through the path we want to follow. I can learn from them.

 

“I was nervous but I have worked really hard to get here, to this moment, that I just wanted to do the best I could and, hopefully, I can keep getting minutes and, as I get older, play more and keep enjoying my time at the club.

“Hopefully, it is just the start. I am going to keep working hard in training, keeping my head down and keeping humble and looking forward to playing more.

“Looking at people like Marcus and Mason, they have come through the same thing as I have through the Academy and it shows the coaches have been doing a really good job. It was nice to have Nicky Butt and Mark Dempsey on the bench because I have been with them in the Under 23s, helping me out. So it was good to share the moment with them.”

The only negative for Shoretire was that it was an empty Old Trafford that marked his debut with fans and family unable to see him make his bow in the flesh.

“With the fans, it makes it 10 times better but still to come on at Old Trafford, looking around me at the size of the stadium and looking where I would sit as a fan and finally playing on the pitch, it was a great moment,” he said.

“My family and friends would have hopefully been watching on TV and they would have been proud. I checked my phone afterwards and it was crazy with my family, school friends and cousins messaging.

"When I travelled to Turin for Real Sociedad, I was thinking I might get on because we were winning so I could have been disappointed but I just came back and worked hard in training again and I hoped for the best this time, and I am happy and grateful for the opportunity.”

UNITED'S YOUNGEST PLAYERS

1. David Gaskell (16 yrs 0 months)
2. Jeff Whitefoot (16 yrs, 3 months)
3. Duncan Edwards (16 years 6 months)
4. Angel Gomes (16 years 8 months)
5. Willie Anderson (16 years 11 months)
6. Norman Whiteside (16 years 11 months)
7. Shola Shoretire (17 years 0 months)

List collated by @MRMUJAC on Twitter.