The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
We’ll build United Goldie
Tannadice may be a far cry from the riches of Europe’s top leagues but Andy Goldie insists his Dundee United youngsters would not be out of place among the world’s best academies.
Un i t e d youth chief Goldie spent time at Manchester United last week, observing their set- up as the two clubs build their relationship.
As Courier Sport revealed y e s t e r d a y, Ta n g e r i n e s youngster Kerr Smith spent a week on trial with the Red Devils and Goldie believes the 15- year- old isn’ t the only one who could make an impact at that level.
The 35- year- old said: “Our best players at every age group would go into Manchester United, or any big club that I’ve had the joy of watching, no problem at all, and be one of the top players. I guarantee that. In the Additional Games Programme we’re playing against some of the best clubs in the world and our boys more than match the opposition.
“That’s really rewarding and I think we downplay the talent we’ve got in this country quite a lot.
“We put a ceiling on what our young players can achieve but Scottish players in the past h av e had remarkable success.
‘‘It’s something we need to make sure we instil that confidence and belief to get back there because Dundee United and Scotland can go toe-to-toe with the best players from Spain, Germany, England, Holland, etc.
“We ’re actually outplaying them at times so it’s really promising.
“In terms of Man United’s programme, they’ve had roughly 4,000 games in a row where they’ve had an academy graduate in the first-team squad – which is unbelievable.
“That’s fantastic success and, if we can emulate that, it would be an outstanding achievement.”
Goldie was hosted in Manchester by academy chief Nick Cox, through United sporting director Tony Asghar, and was impressed with what he saw at the Premier League facility.
The former SFA coach admits that a loan link-up between the clubs could be on the cards amid interest in players from both parties.
“It’s something Tony and I have worked hard on,” Goldie added.
“Tony had previously done a course with Nick Cox, so he put us in touch.
“Over the course of the year we’ve put in best practice from clubs all over the world from San Jose Earthquakes to clubs in South America, down south, all over Europe and the Far East as well.
“We want to bring it all back to Dundee United and, hopefully, the young players and our staff get the benefit of that.
“We have a number of players within our academy that are wanted by clubs down south at the moment.
“A s part of that we’ ve started building relationships with some of the clubs and Man United invited me down last week from Thursday to Saturday.
“It was a very worthwhile trip. It was just the academy side of things with the current Covid restrictions making it tougher.
“It was mostly observing training, meeting with key staff and watching games but we had several really productive meetings regarding how to build our relationship. It bodes well for us going forward.”
Of a potential link, he continued: “It’s something we spoke about. I don’t think i t ’s out of the question.
“First and foremost, I think we’ll always do what’s right for our young players and we won’t block any pathways if we feel there’s a player ready to play firstteam football.
“We’re not going to bring in someone of a similar age because all it would do is slow down his progression – we always look after our own.
“However , the conversation was had and it ’ s some thing we can definitely explore going forward.”
Despite the potential to share talent, Goldie insists the club will continue to look to home-grown stars first, believing what they are doing is every bit as
good as Manchester United.
He continued: “The interesting thing about Ma n Un i t e d was the sessions very rarely look any different – a lot of them are quite consistent across the vast majority of the best clubs, ourselves included.
“The thing that stood out was the culture of the club. It’s, obviously, a massive club and rich in history but they’ve still got guys there who’ve been around for years.
“They use a lot of club legends to deliver the programme, guys like John Cooke (veteran academy coach), Dave Bushell (longtime head of education and welfare) and Darren Fletcher.
“It just shows you the family feel around the place. They had Mark D e m p s e y, one of the first-team coaches, taking an U/16 session alongside
Fletcher – it was fantastic to see that.
“It’s something we do at United but it’s an area we can definitely continue to improve.
“T here was a lot of crossover between the two – Nick actually said there’s a lot of the stuff we’re doing that he likes and that we’re doing better than they are in certain areas.
“There’s areas where we think we can learn from each other, it’s not just a one-way relationship. Of course, the infrastructure and the income and expenditure they’ve got vastly outweighs anything we can do just now.
“But in terms of how we’re delivering the programme with the resources we’ve got I came away very satisfied that we’re doing something very similar to Manchester United – one of the biggest clubs in the world.”