Van Gaal Is Promoting Youth Much Faster Than Ferguson at Manchester United

The shrill and panicked voices of last month have suddenly fallen silent.  

When Louis van Gaal sold Danny Welbeck to Arsenal on the final day of the transfer window, it was seen as evidence Manchester United had willingly trashed their own identity.

In mournful tones, former Manchester United assistant manager Mike Phelan, according to Gary Rose, told the BBC, "They have probably lost the way of Manchester United a little bit. Now, rather than produce, it may be the case where they are buying in."

This ignored the historical truth that United’s identity has long been built on signing big-name players, from Tommy Taylor in the 1950s to the recent signing of Angel Di Maria, to complement the young players they are also producing.

But nearly two months into the season, Phelan’s words have been proven to be both premature and completely wrong.

Louis van Gaal is promoting youth at Old Trafford in a manner that so far outstrips even Sir Alex Ferguson.

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In his first seven weeks, Van Gaal has already given first-team debuts to seven players from United’s youth ranks.

Different times and different needs, but in Ferguson’s first seven weeks at Old Trafford, he gave a debut to only one youth-team player, Gary Walsh.

In fact, it took Ferguson nearly two years before he had given first-team debuts to seven youth-team players.

No one should have ever doubted Van Gaal’s commitment to promoting young players.

This, after all, is the man who won the Champions League with Ajax in 1995 with a team made up mostly from the club’s academy.

Over the course of his career, Van Gaal can boast about handing debuts to Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf.

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In years to come, you might be able to add Paddy McNair or Tyler Blackett to that illustrious list.

Despite United’s slow start to the season, Van Gaal has refused to compromise with his belief in young players and the inherent energy they can bring to a team.

In his first game of the season, with all the expectation swirling around, he thought nothing of throwing in Tyler Blackett and Jesse Lingard for their first starts against Swansea.

After failing to win either of their opening two Premier League games, United travelled to MK Dons for what would be a difficult tie in the Capital One Cup, and yet Van Gaal still blooded Saidy Janko, Andreas Pereira and Reece James.

Possibly the biggest test of Van Gaal came with the visit of West Ham at the end of last month when he was denied the services of three central defenders Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans and Phil Jones.

It was speculated that Van Gaal would possibly rush back Michael Carrick and use him in defence, something which Sir Alex Ferguson had done in his final season.

But, no, that would be the safe and easy option, and instead he dipped into the youth sides once again and handed a debut to 19-year-old central defender Paddy McNair.

It made perfect sense, for after all, the youth side’s basic purpose is to supply players to the first team.

McNair responded with two accomplished performances in United's wins over West Ham and Everton.

Even in last weekend’s victory against Everton, Van Gaal thought nothing of replacing Falcao, soon after he had scored his first goal for United, with another youth-team graduate in James Wilson for the final 17 minutes of the game.

Manchester United are rightly proud of their record of having a youth-team graduate in their first-team squad for more than 3,600 consecutive games since October 1937.

Louis van Gaal has quickly proved that he will protect rather than threaten this record and at an even faster rate than his most revered predecessor, Sir Alex Ferguson.