Ruben Amorim has suggested that the young players on tour such as Sekou Kone can take inspiration from one “excellent” Manchester United star this summer.
The 2024/25 campaign was a gruelling season for everyone associated with Manchester United, but after a surprise 2-0 victory over Aston Villa on Sunday, there’s finally a pause in the action — lasting just three days.
This week, the Reds have travelled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to take on the ASEAN All-Stars, before heading to Hong Kong, China, for a second friendly match.
The short tour is expected to generate over £8 million in revenue — a timely financial boost following the club’s failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Ruben Amorim has taken most of his senior squad on the tour, while also including several promising Academy players, who are likely to play key roles in both fixtures.
With a number of first-team regulars nursing injuries from the Villa match and the squad still recovering from a physically taxing season, the tour presents a valuable chance for the club’s young talent to make an impression on Amorim ahead of the new campaign.
Amorim tells youth talents to take inspiration from United star
There are several exciting young talents with the squad in Malaysia right now. Shea Lacey, Jack Moorhouse, and Chido Obi will bolster the attack, while Jim Thwaites joins midfielders Tyler Fletcher and Sekou Kone after a strong season.
In defence, young players Dan Armer, Jaydan Kamason, Godwill Kukonki, and Reece Munro provide reinforcements to the first-team regulars.
All of those players will be eyeing the chance to impress Amorim and the head coach explained that ‘surprises’ can happen with young talent.
The Portuguese boss highlighted Ayden Heaven, who produced some “excellent” performances last season despite only joining the club in January as someone who had never started a professional game beforehand.
Heaven’s success can be used as inspiration for the likes of Kone, Lacey and Fletcher – if they perform then they could be the next surprise in the first-team.
“During these six months all the [young] players that are here, many of them we use in training so we know the players,” explained Amorim in his press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
“But specifically for this kind of game, we try to bring all the players in different positions for the problems that we have in this moment.
“So for the next season we will see, but this is a good opportunity to see all the young players and sometimes you have surprises – like we had, for example, with Ayden [Heaven], every time he played the he prove that is a first-team player.”
Amorim wants to limit youth expectations
There is a lot of excitement about the talent at Old Trafford but that also brings upon unfair expectations for such young players.
Amorim wants to try and change that, and he refused to single out any of the Academy stars when asked who he thinks can push through into the first-team next season.
“One issue is we push too much from the beginning and you have social media and all the pressure around the young kids,” he added.
“It’s hard to control. I don’t want to say any names but I believe in all of them and sometimes, like you said, you have surprises.
“This is a massive club and that is a big question – sometimes we put our young kids on a pedestal and that is an important thing to change, because we need to control that.”
Make sure to follow UtdDistrict on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to never miss out on any of our Manchester United content. Our podcast, What the Devil?, is streamed live every Thursday at 12:30 pm (BST) on the United View YouTube channel.