MOURINHO: THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT

The Busby Babes, the Class of ’92 ... but Jose insists United’s young talent conveyor belt is now BROKEN

JOSE MOURINHO has admitted Manchester United’s famed production line of young talent has dried up.

The club that produced the Busby Babes and the Class of ’92 is struggling to live up to its noble reputation as a producer of young talent, according to Mourinho.

The Reds manager took seven youngsters on the club’s five-game tour of the USA, with so many of his established stars injured on post-World Cup breaks.

Angel Gomes, 17, Mason Greenwood, 16, Tahith Chong, 18, Joshua Bohui, 19, (all pictured right), were joined in the States by James Garner, 17, RoShaun Williams and Ethan Hamilton, both 19.

All were given snippets of first-team action on tour, largely as substitutes, as Mourinho struggled to put together a side fit for the pre-season build-up. But after United ended their US tour with a 2-1 win over Real Madrid in Miami, Mourinho said the quality available to him was “not good” following the relegation of the Under-23s from Premier League Two last season.

The Under-23s have been left at home to prepare for the new season, so he was left with the raw teenagers and he said: “We had just a few players here, lots of kids.

“Our kids are really, really young because the Under23 team was relegated, the team went to the second division.

“So the quality was not good. So we prefer to bring kids, and we had on the pitch today a couple of kids who were 17-years-old.”

That stark admission came on the back of Mourinho’s blunt admission days earlier that many of the young players he was forced to take on tour to make up the numbers will be sent out on loan next season.

“This is not our team,” he said in the wake of United’s embarrassing 4-1 defeat by Liverpool. “We started the game with almost half of the players who are not even going to belong to our squad on August 9. They will not be here.

“So this is not our squad. This is not even half my squad or 30 per cent of it. So don’t look to this.”

United dropped into the second tier of Premier League Two despite having finished as champions in three of the last five seasons.

The Reds, managed by Ricky Sbragia, were crowned champions in the first year of the competition’s new format, after it replaced the Premier Reserve League in 2012-13.