Steve Armstrong is a lifelong Red and contributor to Manchester United fanzine, United We Stand.
TWENTY years after winning pretty much everything with kids, Manchester United have once again started to win things with kids.
He may go on to become a club legend and spend his whole career here. He may go the way of many others
The comparison isn't a fair one, but when has fairness ever stopped us? The reason it's unfair is because Sir Alex Ferguson genuinely believed those kids were better than the established. He did it out of choice. Louis Van Gaal didn’t have a choice. If he thought it he’d have done it earlier. He didn’t.
In the space of a week the youth in the club have given the entire place the lift it needed. Though it differs massively to 1996. The situation is more comparable with the United team of New Year's Day in 1989, when a similarly depleted squad and heavily under fire manager were pulled out of the gloom by a group of lads who took the country’s best side, Liverpool, apart at Old Trafford.
They weren’t collectively good enough to make it at United but that was a turning point - and the rest, as they say, is history.
Only time will tell whether the group that did something pretty similar against Arsenal will follow the path of the '89 youth or that of the side that emerged a few years later.
Gaining most of the plaudits, largely by scoring as many goals in four days as Radamel Falcao managed in a season, is Wythenshawe-born Marcus Rashford. He’s not the first eighteen year old to dazzle on his debut, let's not forget Wayne Rooney's quite exceptional hatrick against Fenerbahce in 2004. The difference being one left us little change from £30m, the other hails from the United academy and few - prior to his opening shot in the Europa League - had a clue who he was. Now he’s the talking point of fans, journalists and pundits across the world. He may go on to become a club legend and spend his whole career here. He may go the way of many others.
Whatever happens, Marcus Rashford and his teammates have done more for fan morale in the last week than the first team squad have done all season. They've given United fans a reason to smile again.
(image credit: manutd.com)
