Reaction to the youth games against Wrexham and Burnley
Academy manager Alan Moore spoke to us about the close down to this season and looking forward to the new 2015/16 campaign."Our final league fixture was against Wrexham and it was disappointing," he said. "The lads did well the previous Saturday, so we're just trying to get some consistency. They played really well against Shrewsbury, without getting the result, but the performances in that game were good across the pitch.
"That wasn't the same for the Tuesday game at Wrexham. The lads fell well below standards. It's always tough going down there because they're in your face and physical. They can play football as well and we didn't match it on the day."
"We took a young team down there," he explained. "We had under-16s starting for us but they're all getting a feel for it now. That will benefit them when they come in to us full time next season. We want to try and get as many minutes under the belts of next year's group as we can, and that's the thinking behind the friendly games we've organised.
"We're trying to integrate next year's group and get a settled team. We've got another game this week at Middlesbrough which will be much the same. We've got a couple of trialists in and hopefully it will be as enjoyable as the Burnley game was last week.
"Burnley play the game in the right way and we always enjoy the games against them. It was a very even contest throughout and we got a lot out of it."
"We've just done the induction with the new intake," he explained. "They're all doing their exams, and they need to concentrate on that, but they've got to make sure they're fit and ready to go as soon as they get in the building for pre-season.
"We're talking about having a pre-season with the first team and youth team together, so we've already spoken to our players about standing out and being noticed for doing the right things. They don't want to be getting noticed because they're at the back of the runs or giving the ball away cheaply.
"Pre-season will be like we used to do years ago," he explained. "We would all train together for the first couple of weeks and it's a real chance for the young lads to get noticed.
"We've got targets, as you would expect, and I have to do an annual report to evaluate that," he commented. "We set ourselves a target with regards to the amount of professional contracts we get from the second years and we didn't meet it.
"We're quite confident that it won't be the same because we're looking at a group which is working well together. That makes them stronger and we should reap the benefits of it further down the line. We've watched them quite a lot and they're a good group, so we're going to try and get them involved in pre-season as much as we can."
"It's upped the game of all of the coaching staff as well. They've had to make sure their sessions have been planned because we've been evaluating what they've been doing.
United v Wrexham: Fowler, Hurley, McCue (Salkeld, 46), Wallace, Douglas, Robson, Egan (Holt, 60), Taylor, Rudd, Hammell, Bradbury. Sub: Groves.