97% Of Man Utd Goals This Season Have Involved Academy Graduate

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford.

Reuters/Craig Brough

Much ruckus has been raised over Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tenure at Manchester United.

Not all of it is incorrect as the Norwegian gaffer has had quite the tumultuous reign at his former outfit, with ace performances like their recent 3-0 win over Partizan at Old Trafford forming erstwhile moments of joy in a season that has been riddled with negatives.

However, the gaffer keeps stressing that United are in a period of transition and rebuilding. While on the face-value many fans may find this point to be quite frustrating, there is evidence to show that a massive change is already underway at the Old Trafford outfit.

31 of United’s 32 goals, including the pre-season campaign have had the involvement of an academy graduate, either in scoring or assisting.

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Of these, 20 goals were scored in competitive matches domestically and in the Europa League, from which 19 stay true to the youth academy aspect. Further, this total comes up to 96.8% of the goals scored, a brilliant feather on the cap of the club’s DNA.

Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay are the stand-out performers in contributing to this figure, while the likes of Mason Greenwood have made their own steady impact.

The sole exception to this statistic came during the 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace where the Red Devils’ lone goal was created by Anthony Martial and netted by Daniel James.

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Paul Pogba, although purchased back for a hefty fee, is still an academy graduate nevertheless and has played a lesser role than one would have expected. Angel Gomes, James Garner, Tahith Chong, Jesse Lingard, Andreas Pereira, and Ro-Shawn Williams also feature amongst the counts.

While the fact that Man City have scored 34 goals in the Premier League alone so far this season cannot be denied when comparing United’s figure, there is a strain of massive positivity to this statistic.

Historically, United have always relied on their homegrown talent to make a steady impact in their success and most fans will be hoping that Solskjaer’s reign is pointing to the same.

 

Update: Since writing this article, and Manchester United’ win against Brighton, their academy graduates have now contributed to 34 of the 35 goals all season, a mind boggling 97.2%