Ineos’ quest to sign tomorrow’s superstars has now taken scouts to an academy in Manchester where a talented defender was found.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe made no secret of his desire to recruit young and high-potential footballers, as opposed to making the big money mistakes which were commonplace under The Glazers.
This was in action immediately last summer with a handful of youngsters being signed at various age levels, a group headlined by Chido Obi who is now becoming a superstar for Manchester United.
Manchester United’s best teenage recruits over the past year
Ayden Heaven
Chido Obi
Dante Plunkett
Diego Leon
James Overy
Leny Yoro
Samuel Lusale
Sekou Kone
Silva Mexes
The youth revolution within Old Trafford continued in January with Ayden Heaven picked up for £1.5m from Arsenal and Diego Leon has been arranged to join in the summer.
United have so many talented players in the academy, but the talent search never ends within Carrington. Now, the club have taken a 15-year-old defender, Glen Ilunga, on trial.
Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Glen Ilunga had clubs trying to sign him on the spot before Manchester United trial
This week has seen United take Glen Ilunga on trial from Manchester-based academy AR Elite. The academy is one of the city’s fastest growing with over 30 players being sent on trial to different club academy sides across the country.
The club aims to keep kids in football and off the streets, club founder Abdelghany Ramadan told United in Focus.
During the conversation, Abdelghany also explained to United in Focus just how talented the trialist, Ilunga, is. This while making a bold prediction over the Irish defender.
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“The kid is absolutely unreal. I promise you [watch out] in three years’ time. If he doesn’t make it I’m quitting football, that’s how much I rate him. We’ve had a lot of players come through our academy and honestly, remember this call…”
Continuing, the AR Elite coach explained that Ilunga has already blown away other teams with Hull City offering him a contract on the spot.
“He played against Hull City U18s for AR Elite around a week ago and Hull City staff literally pulled out pen and paper after that game and said ‘We’ll offer him a pre-scholar deal right now, what do you want? We’ll give you anything you want’. We had to tell them we’d given our word to United, we can’t do that.
“I work with a lot of professionals one-to-one and I promise you the kid is unreal.”
For a central defender to be impressive three years up from his U15 age group is very impressive, demonstrating he is developed physically and upon viewing highlights we can see where his talents lie.
Glen Ilunga looks the part and Manchester United should be excited
While discussing the abilities of Ilunga with United in Focus, Abdelghany also shared some highlight reels of the 15-year-old in action.
Most notably, Ilunga thrives with the ball as he seems to showcase regularly as he can pick passes or carry the ball forward before finding an attacking teammate.
Beyond his technical ability, Ilunga also possesses a strong physical presence in defence as he seems to win the ball back very easily, while also having the speed to really match any forward he comes up against.
Ilunga appears to have all the qualities needed to shine in the Premier League, with the high praise from Abdelghany just furthering how excited fans should be about United potentially signing the kid.
That being said, it remains to be seen whether anything will come from this, we hope it will as he looks like a real talent.