Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted he’s not entirely sure what to do with Tom Cleverley, the United youngster who scored against Valencia last night. A few Premiership clubs appear to be interested in landing his services on loan, whilst the player himself is happy to play wherever the manager thinks is best.
“We don’t know what to do, in fairness,” said Ferguson. “A lot of clubs have been in for him, one or two Premier Division teams in fact. He’s going to be a good player, the boy. He does need experience of playing, and it’s something that I’m looking at, whether we put him out on loan.”
Cleverley reckons he will be going out on loan this season although is hopeful that his goal last night might mean he can stick about this season.
“I was told last week I’d be training with the first team this week, then I got put in the squad,” said Cleverley. “It’s all happened a bit fast, but obviously it’s my first game at Old Trafford for the first team, but I think I did well. When you train with the first team day in, day out it makes you work harder and see you can do it. I want to play in the first team here and get a look-in. I’m not too sure what the future holds, to be honest. The plan was to go on loan, but I’ll just see if I figure in the gaffer’s plans now and just take every game as it comes.”
Loan him to a championship team let him get his legs kicked in straighten the guy up and if he still has the love take him back a reap the rewards
i would rather keep him in the reserve. if we want to loan him its better to put him under roy keane rather than a pemiership club where he can get better or under steve bruce. wot do u think guys.
Ipswich or Peterboro would be ideal for him, i agree with fergie the lad has the potential to be a very good player.
If we keep him he should play all carling cup matches and most FA cup matches, he’d come in handy incase of injuries aswell. But if he’s not going to play cup matches we might aswell send him out on loan to get some experience, Burnley would be a good team to send him to or failing that like ghtt said a championship team that will toughen him up and play him more often.
Most of the promising players who go out on loan to championship or even lesser premiership teams come back worse than they were when they went on loan!! Simpson , Martin , Eagles , Bardsley , Campbell to name a few , keep him in the squad and let him improve with world class players round him like Wellbeck and Macheda!! Not picking up bad habits from wannabes and has beens at the other clubs!! Really when you think how many actually make it after going out on loan especially to that Antwerp club it is quite shocking!!
Walter in the past premiership manchester united teams beckham went on loan came back scored from the half way line and became golden balls in the team now look at jonny evens and in the future remember possebon
Like Ritchie de Laet and/or Danny Simpson, this guy is waaay down the pecking order. I doubt he has the up-side of Rodrigo Possebon who has been sent out on loan for the whole year or the Serbian kid who is coming to OT in January or Davide Petrucci who is supposed to be TheNextOne or Darron Gibson who looks a very tidy player, indeed.
What is striking about Cleverley – as it was with Chris Eagles and Richard Eckersley – is how composed he was last night. I think that this is a strong endorsement for the job being done with the kids/reserves. None of the guys coming on for their first appearance at OT seem over-awed by the experience. And, I would think that walking out before a crowd of 75,000 at OT must be equivalent to an out-of-body experience for someone who has previously played in front of ten pensioners and their dogs.
The jump from “suspect” to “prospect” is incredibly difficult at UTD. Even guys who are full internationals with major footie powers like Park, Nani, Tosic, Anderson are only on the fringes of the first team. Park is the captain of his country, Nani has been a starter in most of Portugal’s games since he was twenty, the same goes for Tosic who has collected more than a dozen full-international caps for Serbia, and Anderson was a starter for Brazil before he was twenty. The point being that if these guys aren’t guaranteed first-choice players then for someone like Cleverley there is a very, very steep learning curve before he can ever make the jump from “suspect” to “prospect”.
Wesley did it, John O’Shea did it, and Darren Fletcherinho did it but a great many others – from Robbie Savage to Richard Eckersley – have fallen by the wayside even though they have proven themselves to be good, solid, journeymen professionals.
@ Walter & Ghtt…
Right there is both sides of the argument. So we can see why SAF has such a headache in deciding what to do.
Anyway, its good to see the continuous stream of quality we keep producing.
Off topic. hope to see you all get your fantasy dream teams in. (My team is No F in Beer).
Should be another cracking season.
Tiny tears there is no doubt that some will make it after going out on loan but i am very sceptical as to how much it benefits them playing for these lesser teams and in some instances not even being picked by thses teams when they go there , would Beckham and Evans not have made it anyway?? Would training with Rooney , Berbatov , Scholes and giggs everyday not bring them on a lot quicker than training with teams that dont play our way and cant string 3 passes together!! Eagles , Martin and Campbell looked great prospects when they had a few games for the first team , they went out on loan and looked hopeless in their loan teams?? and then went from bad to worse. I for one dont have a lot of faith in the loan system we use!!!
I live in Peterborough and my local paper says that Posh could be interested in loaning Cleverley. He’d play every game for sure.
Keep him, put G Nev out on loan!
dunno much abt him.but if fergie feels he is good enough then he should play regularly wherever he goes.simpson went to blackburn last year and did nt play enough games.on the other hand evans was impressive at sunderland and played regularly.evans aldready looks like a futurd legend.
The red nev on loan, I know keano would take him
I’d rather players go out on loan and fail than stay at old trafford and fail but If they go out and are a success then united have a player that they know what to do with. Just because a shit load of fans didn’t watch manuchio at hull didn’t mean sir Alex didn’t watch him I’d say he was watched more than Rooney by the boss because we know what Wayne can do
@GHTT
I wasn’t serious about G Nev going on loan. However, I do believe his time has come to an end with us. I see him as third choice now behind Wesley and Rafael..
G Nev is a legend however, and I’m not trying to disrepect him at all.
I think you are right about Gary Nevilleng – complete legend but down in the pecking order now. I think he’ll probably retire at Utd.
I meant to write ‘Neville’!!!
Last season also, if i remember correctly, Cleverly got a goal in South Africa on his debut but was no where to be seen near the first team.
I must admit, I haven’t really seen much about the lad but if Fergie rates, then who am i to decide.
Excellent post, Denton Davey.
If the statements by Gill and Fergie are truthful, that United won’t be buying more players and that they believe there are good young players coming through, that’s good news. I’m glad if they are resisting the temptation to spend all that Ronaldo money on a ‘marquee signing’ and trusting youth. It’s true there appears to be a very good crop of youngsters and I would love to see them given a chance, in the great United tradition. Of course it gets harder every year to risk inexperienced players but the success of Jonny Evans and Raphael and to a lesser extent Gibson, Macheda and Welbeck shows it can be done, not to mention ‘ones that got away’ like Rossi and Pique. I’d like to see a steady stream of kids given games here and there, building up their experience. One of the little heralded features of the United structure these days is that players can slot seamlessly into the next level up as the basics are the same throughout the whole club, which is why so many of these kids do well straight away, even if they still subsequently get sold on.From that point of view it could be argued that loans are not the answer, the kids actually benefit more from training with the first team squad. The exposure to the competitive environment and the highest possible skill levels at the most successful club in the UK for the last 15 years gives a youngster something they could never get elsewhere. But, having said that, I’d trust Fergie to get it right. Coming back to the thread about morality in the game the other day, part of that trust is based on the knowledge that Fergie really does seem to play fair by the young people in his care, hence allowing major talents like Rossi and Pique to leave, despite it being against United’s best interests, as we saw last May with Pique. It was one of the few redeeming features of Barca’s victory over a strangely supine United was the way Pique made a point of speaking to his old friends at United , about whom he spoke very warmly. He expressed genuine gratitude for the coaching he’d received and still regarded the club with real affection.
If he goes to a Premiership team he will spend the whole season on the bench, like Campbell did last year.. Better to send him to Leicester again or keep him for the squad.
This thread makes me smile again. There are some very brilliant comments up there. I always come to this blog when I feel stressed in the office, because reading what fellow United fans’ thought are refreshing.
Anyway about Cleverley, as much as i would love to see him succeed with United, he is way behind in the pecking order. Sad to say but i dont think he can make it.
But the conclusion is, lol, SAF is one hell of a great man. But you cant compare SAF with Cantona though, because Cantona is not a man
SAF keeps on proving his critics wrong, and SAF will always find a way out. Scott, please make a competition on SAF’s greatest acts.
Two excellent posts from Denton Davey and Giles. Keep up the good work my friends as I always look forward to hearing your rational, well reasoned views.
Fergie isn’t spending the Ronaldo money for a reason. He thinks he has good cover for every position. In the last few years he has invested heavily in youth. We are now seeing the product of this investment. Cleverley, De Laet, Raphael, Fabio, Wellbeck, Macheda and Gibson are all fine young players and deserve there chance. If we keep buying superstars we will lose these players to other clubs.
It’s reassuring that these young players are coming through the youth system and to see them (hopefully) fulfil their potential in Uniteds 1st team. What I liked about Cleverley was 3 things: his composure, confidence and football intelligence. Being at the right place and time and having the confidence in his footballing technique and the mental composure in front of goal not to panic but calmly put the ball in the back of the net, pure brilliance. I think SAF will keep him and not loan him out as he’ll learn more from scholes and giggs than some championship players. Plus it’s understanding the United way.
Has there ever been an instance of a manager being loaned out?
There’s another perspective of Ronnie being gone that we could look at:
Without a player essentially guaranteed a start on the wing, this could give our prospects / suspects a better chance to prove themselves than what was on offer last season. The trouble is, the only way these kids can prove anything is if this they are given a chance in the bigger matches. Look at Macheda: the kid comes on in two critical matches and shines; within 10 matches he’s become 1 of the 4 first team strikers. Compare this with Welbeck, who had statistically similar performances, but in less crucial games. The only way they can prove they’re able to cope with the big stage is if they play…on the big stage.
What makes this situation more complex is that we’re dealing with the wing. Last season nani and tosic barely got a peek at the 1st team because the only position available was opposite Ronnie. With every match these days being crucial (unlike when it was just us and le Arse challenging) that position was given to Park or Giggsy, most likely because Fergie wanted the security of having experience there while Ronnie did his thing on the other side.
My question is this: now that Ronaldo’s gone, can we basically put a rotation policy in place on the wings to give the potentials a chance even if it means a gamble on losing points in big matches? I’m hoping yes, especially after seeing Cleverley on wednesday (one word came to mind — “class”). With talents like him, Tosic, and now Obertan at our disposal I’d love to see them get some first team action…especially when it puts them to the ultimate test of whether they are fit to wear the shirt.
btw, this is only my second post, so feel free to let me know if it was too long, in the wrong place or anything.