“Football is forward-thinking, fast-moving and everyone’s thinking about next week, next game, next contract, where we might get to in the league etc.” explained Nick Cox.
“The staff will be the same, and the players will be the same. We’re always looking for what’s next, so how do we help 254 make that debut?
“But it’s important that we take some time to live in the present moment to celebrate what I think is magical. I said to the boys: they’ve joined an exclusive club of players who’ve graduated from the youth team into the first team. And you can only get into that club through talent, hard work, determination, and persistence. Money can’t buy your way into that club, you can only get there by having something special and having a special character as well.
“What I think’s incredibly powerful is the boys can look at the names on that wall and they can pull out some legends, but if you go to the bottom of that wall, they’re actually looking at their mates. They’re looking at players they’ve played in the same team as. So it takes this really difficult challenge, really magical thing that not many people get to do, and it normalises it and it makes it real, and it’s a real sense of motivation to think: ‘my friends can do it, I can do it, too’. That’s the beauty of this club. There was a month between these debuts, right? So it’s competitive. That’s the environment we have here. The fact the boys can compete with each other is a really powerful part of what happens here, and that’s not the case at many football clubs.”
Watch more insight from Nick, and reaction from Obi and Amass, here.
FREDRICSON BECOMES GRADUATE 254
Just as we were celebrating two graduates, another young Red made his first-team debut. Congratulations to Tyler Fredricson, who acquitted himself fantastically as he started at Old Trafford in Sunday’s unfortunate 1-0 defeat to Wolves.
