Chelsea chief’s Fernandes fears
NICKY Butt says midfielders James Garner and Dylan Levitt need to spend more time with the United first-team before embarking on potential loan moves next season.
The Reds received offers to take Garner, 18, on loan in the January transfer window and Levitt, 19, has been regularly called up to the Wales senior squad this season.
Levitt was unwell during the festive fixture period and it is understood that partly prevented him from leaving on loan.
Garner made his debut last season and started in three of United’s Europa League group games, while Levitt partnered Garner in the 2-1 defeat at Astana in what is his only career appearance.
United reinforced their midfield with the £46.5m addition of Bruno Fernandes last month, and Paul Pogba and Scott McTominay could return later this month.
Butt feels it still would have been a mistake to fix loans for Garner and Levitt.
“I think I’d probably be the same if I was 18 or 19 and not getting in the first-team,” Butt told M.E.N. Sport. “I’d want to go and play men’s football as well, because you do come to a point in the reserves where you bypass that and it does become too easy for you, and it becomes a bit lethargic and you also want to push the younger ones up.
“But then also the flip-side of it is you don’t want to dive into the wrong loan spell or wrong club and end up thinking, ‘I’ve made a complete error here, I’m going to lose six months, I’m going to lose a year of my football, I’m at the wrong club’. So you’ve got to be very careful.
“It’s a really strange dynamic in that bubble of a Jimmy Garner, a Dylan Levitt, Brandon (Williams) to a point, Mason Gre e n w o o d , Angel Gomes, Tahith Chong. It’s a hard place they are in at the minute because you want that final little hurdle to be playing every week but you’re not going to be. It’s how you manage that.”
Butt, now the head of first-team development, is in charge of identifying loans for the United academy players along with the player performance manager, Les Parry, and the pair arranged for recalled trio Ethan Hamilton, George Tanner and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson to join Greater Manchester clubs last month. Hamilton is still in League One at Bolton Wanderers following five months with Southend United, Tanner has switched from Morecambe to Salford City in League Two and BorthwickJackson has joined the same league with Oldham Athletic after one start for Tranmere Rovers. B o r t hwi c kJackson, 22, experienced disastrous loan stints in the Championship with Wolves and Leeds United before relegation to League Two with Scunthorpe United.
Butt suggested the FA should implement new loan rules to allow parent clubs to recall players
As soon as a manager is sacked you should be able to recall your players Nicky Butt
sooner. He said: “When we do get [players] out on loan, which will probably be July, then we’ve now got a five-month process of getting the right club for them.
“Make sure the dynamic’s right, make sure the coaches there are right, make sure you’re confident they are going to play - we never know 100 per cent they’re going to play because no one’s got that right - you’ve got to work hard and try and get into the team.
“But you have an inkling of what kind of coach and what kind of footballer they want, what kind of promises they can promise and keep the promises.
“Is it a club that’s going to sack three managers in a year? Because as soon as the manager’s gone you could be sat on a bench.
“I think there are a few rules that would help the loans for the Premier League. As soon as a manager is sacked you should be able to recall your players, because it could be a manager that doesn’t suit your philisophy. Or if you’ve not been playing after a few months, you should be able to be recalled as well.
“But until that happens you have to be really selective about what club they’re going to go to.
“So that’s why they’ve not gone out just yet, partly because we want them to become Man United people and train in that environment longer and better and get more eyes on them from first-team coaches.
“We have seen in the past a lot of failed loans.”