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Why Mason Greenwood has what it takes to survive the Manchester United hype machine

Still just 17 years old, Mason Greenwood could end up playing a role in Manchester United's first team this season - Getty Images AsiaPac
Still just 17 years old, Mason Greenwood could end up playing a role in Manchester United's first team this season - Getty Images AsiaPac

Every now and then a talent comes along that even the first team players, who are often deliberately hard to impress, cannot ignore. The buzz around Mason Greenwood at Manchester United had brought him to the attention of the senior squad long before he began training with them. It is said that they would show each other footage of him banging in goals - left foot, right foot, it didn’t matter - on their phones in the dressing room and several were impressed enough to take a first hand look at what all the fuss was about by attending some of his games at the club’s Carrington training base.

In a week when Ravel Morrison, once touted by Sir Alex Ferguson as the most talented homegrown product he had laid eyes on, joined Sheffield United on a one-year deal as he bids to salvage a career that promised so much but has delivered precious little, caution and perspective are necessary where Greenwood is concerned. Morrison was tipped for stardom but ended up playing in Mexico and Sweden before Chris Wilder decided to gamble and bring him to Bramall Lane.

So many young prodigies have been subjected to the Old Trafford hype machine yet the reality is very few hit the heights hoped for them at a club with as rich traditions of youth development as any in Europe. Will it be different for Greenwood? No one can say with any certainty but, on the evidence of what we have seen so far, he seems to have a better chance than most.

United’s 4-0 win over Leeds United at the Optus Stadium here in Perth on Wednesday was notable for several things - another superbly taken goal from Marcus Rashford, a fine display from wantaway midfielder Paul Pogba and a second encouraging run-out for new boys Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Daniel James. Yet it was the performances of two recent academy graduates, Greenwood and Tahith Chong, in either half that resonated at a time when so many United supporters seem fixated on new signings that stopping to pause and consider what the club already has at its disposal can often get lost amid the disillusionment and understandable Glazer bashing.

Two months on from becoming the youngest United player to start a Premier League game, Greenwood claimed his first senior goal, a poacher’s finish after Wan-Bissaka had got in behind the Leeds defence to square Pogba’s sublime reverse pass for United’s young striker.

It is certainly hard to believe Greenwood is still only 17 and will not celebrate his eighteenth birthday until October. He dovetailed well with Rashford, their pace and movement causing Leeds all manner of problems and, while there will be far tougher tests ahead, far more demanding examinations, there seemed to be a natural understanding between the pair.

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford celebrates scoring their third goal with Mason Greenwood and Fred  - Credit: Reuters
Greenwood had been brought on when United were chasing a goal at PSG - a goal that Marcus Rashford provided late on Credit: Reuters

“I said to him, ‘Once you get the first goal, the rest will come naturally’,” Rashford said of Greenwood. “That goal is nothing but instinct. You can tell he’s a natural finisher, that’s what he’s best at. So for him, he doesn’t have to change anything, he’ll come into the team, do his stuff and he’ll score goals. That’s what he does.”

Rashford’s emergence a few years earlier can only help Greenwood. United have produced plenty of outstanding players who have progressed from the academy but not many strikers who have reached the top so Rashford’s progress offers his younger, similarly single-minded team-mate a pathway. Still only 21, Rashford has much still to prove himself, not least whether he can become a 20-goal-a-season man, but Greenwood will recognise the faith Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has placed in the England striker and understand the manager is serious when he talks about giving youth its chance.

Timing obviously plays its part, though, as Rashford can testify, so just as he benefited from a raft of injuries and never looked back after four goals in his first two games against FC Midtjylland and Arsenal, so Greenwood could be the biggest beneficiary of Romelu Lukaku’s anticipated move to Inter Milan. Inter still have to cough up the cash but, in the Belgium striker’s absence against Perth Glory on Saturday and now Leeds, Greenwood is making the most of his audition. Solskjaer suggested this week that, if Lukaku departs, he would want a replacement, but the Norwegian also said he would have no concerns about starting Greenwood in United’s opening Premier League match against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Aug 11.

“It’s a good possibility if he keeps going as he does. It’s difficult to keep players out if they keep playing well,” Solskjaer said.

Rashford will be there to give advice as and when Greenwood needs it. "It's definitely a nice thing (that I have been through what he’s now going through),” Rashford said. “For him, you have to understand people's characteristics. He's quite a laidback person so I think for him it's no good putting things in his head constantly and repeatedly.

"He's a clever kid so he'll learn it as he goes, but, yeah, his natural abilities are frightening.  "The manager is obviously doing a good job in sort of guiding him in the right direction and the more you do that, his talent with just come through.

Greenwood scored 30 goals in 29 games for United’s Under-18, Under-19 and Under-21 sides last season but perhaps the most striking aspect about the teenager is that he is completely comfortable using both feet, the definition of a two-footed player.

It requires someone with complete conviction in his abilities to be willing to take penalties with his left foot one moment and his right the next, ditto corners and free-kicks. He is a nightmare for defenders because there is not a weaker side to try to shift him on to - usher him one way and he will gladly go the other - and he is not easily disheartened. “He is almost what you call 50-50 - maybe 51-49 left footed,” Solskjaer said.

Mason Greenwood of Manchester United celebrates a goal during a pre-season friendly match between Manchester United and Leeds United at Optus Stadium - Credit: Getty images
Greenwood scored his first senior goal in a friendly against Leeds on Wednesday Credit: Getty images

Raised in Wibsey in south west Bradford, Greenwood was playing in United’s development centre from the age of six. Manchester City tried and failed more recently to entice him across the road and, last October, he signed his first professional contract having gone on tour to the US with a patched up first team squad the previous summer under Jose Mourinho. Presumably, Greenwood was not one of the kids Mourinho had in mind when the Portuguese infamously declared: “Do you want me to be very happy with the players [Alexis Sanchez] has around him?”

Solskjaer’s trust is such that he brought both Greenwood and Chong on against Paris St-Germain in March in the second leg of their Champions League Round of 16 tie as they chased a third goal at the Parc des Princes, which Rashford duly delivered in stoppage time, and there were further appearances against Arsenal and West Ham United.

Against Cardiff, Greenwood missed enough chances to claim at least a hat-trick and in one instance was guilty of trying to go with the outside of his left boot when the ball was screaming to be hit with his right but his positioning and movement were excellent, playing in a side with zero confidence and team-mates flailing all around him. Nerves doubtless also played some part, inevitable for a 17-year-old making his first league start in front of a frustrated crowd, but it was a very promising showing, a ray of light amid darkening clouds.

United are certainly handling Greenwood carefully. Even now he has forced his way into the first team squad, he remains off limits to the media and there is something similar about the club’s handling of the teenager to the way Ferguson shielded Ryan Giggs nearly 30 years ago. Even the club’s photographers have to be careful about when and where they picture Greenwood. Solskjaer watched the likes of David Beckham and Paul Scholes rise to prominence at Old Trafford in the mid-1990s so he knows talent when he sees it - and the expectations and demands that come with playing for United. He just hopes Greenwood gets the breaks that all players need.

“You see a talented boy there and he’s got every opportunity to make it as a Manchester United player,” Solskjaer said. “Of course it’s also going to be about luck, staying clear of injuries, being professional and I’m sure he’s going to grab his chance because everything is there for him.”