The Glazers rarely speak in public and despite having owned Manchester United for over a decade, I'd never actually heard Avram Glazer speak until this week when he was speaking out in Saudi Arabia at the Missk Global Conference. Now, Saudi Arabia, you know we've covered those reports in detail linking the out-south family with a potential takeover of Manchester United. But with the Glazers right now, I really don't know what they think about Manchester United other than the fact that it's a massive cash cow for them, you know shares right now higher than they've ever been, it's a massive money maker and a money spinner for the Glazers. But what do they think about Manchester United? Now, speaking at the Missk Global Forum, which is a forum designed to promote youth, Avram Glazer was asked what he thought about what it took to make a great team, and this is what he had to say. What makes Manchester United such an incredible team? How did they build? What's the history of building a great team? Well, in Manchester United everything starts with the youth. Developing youth is a core belief in Manchester United. It's part of the ethos of what Manchester United is and it all starts with our youth academy. So what Manchester United does is it tries to develop young players and we have under 18 team, we have an under 16 year old team, we have an under 14 year old team, we have an under 12 year old team, and we have an under 10 year old team. So people start very, very young and their goal is to work their way up to be on the Manchester United first team. So once again developing youth, making these players and these people successful is a very, very comprehensive process and we try to still in these young people a lot of good traits we try to build their character, their self-believed, their persistence, their resilience, things like that, into long process, and a lot of hard work, and the players themselves have to really be dedicated to try to be successful. So that's really the core of Manchester United. Now there's a couple of points I want to raise about what Abraham Glazer had to say. First and foremost, obviously he's going to be speaking about the youth if he's talking at a missk global forum designed to promote youth. I understand that. And the youth has always been a massive part of Manchester United, even dating back to pre-Buzby Baves coming through the Busby Baves, coming through some at Busby, coming through the class of 92, what we saw there with the Neville brothers, with Skoles, with Beckham, with Giggs, the youth has always been an intrinsic part of the fabric of Manchester United and that will never go away. Right now we're coming up towards 4,000 consecutive first team squads since October 1937 that have featured a Manchester United Academy graduate. That record really is nothing short of phenomenal. However, it's all well and good hearing, Abraham Glazer saying that youth is part of the core of Manchester United and that's what has made it such a success over the years. But to me, it kind of feels like empty words at the moment because the state of play in Manchester and at Manchester United as well has changed dramatically. You know, once upon a time maybe even like five, six years ago, Manchester United's Academy was unrivaled really. It was so successful and that the amount of graduates that came through, the way it produced players, the way it trained players, was unrivaled in the Premier League. But Manchester United Academy isn't the shining bastion that it once was under Ceradic's Ferguson. I mean, to put it bluntly, it's been in disarray for some time. I mean, look at what happened in 2015. When Brian McClare, he left Manchester United as the head of Academy, went to join the Scottish F.A. It took Manchester United seven months to a point Nikki Buck as a new head of academy. A player who was fantastic at the club, a player who was the un-a-23s manager and I think it was a club secretary at some point as well. He had been promoted to do one of the most important jobs in the club and it took you know, it's seven months to find him from within. How did it take that long? You know, Paul McGinnis left soon after as he under-a-teens coach, massively successful. He was with our under-a-teens for years and years and years. Warren Joyce, he left as our under-a-23s coach who go and tries luck at Wig and I think it was again hugely successful for years and years and years and then Mickey Buck replaced him originally, Ricky Spregge, I think that's how he says name. He came in as our under-a-23s coach as well so we lost some of our most important personnel at the club and we struggled to replace them and for years, United's Academy was on a major downturn but it's been a bit of an upturn that in the recent years anyway, look at Karen McKenna was brought in from Spurs as our under-a-teens coach and he did a superb job, finished second with the under-a-teens in his first year, won the under-a-teent title in his second year and he's now an assistant to Jose Merino. He's doing a fantastic job and it's clear to see that was a great appointment. He's helping bring through Angel Gomez who's since made his first team debut. So he's Chong in Barlow, a lot of good players in the academy coming through now. But United are playing catch-up because of their own undoing. The under-investment in the academy for years and years and years is now coming back to Barth United in the arse and we caused our own problems because if we had sustained our own previous success we wouldn't now be playing catch-up with ourselves and if it really was such a core value to the club like the Glazer say it is there would never have been under-investment. There would never have been any problems that came to surface because the problems would have been stopped before they were a problem and that's a bit like Manchester United right now. We're a massively reactive club rather than proactive. We should have proactively avoided these issues with the academy by investing earlier rather than doing what we're doing now and trying to play catch-up to Manchester City because ManiNight is declining the academy since has been matched by Man City's entry into the academy. Now they opened their £200m academy. I think it was in 2015 or 2014 and it changed the scope of academy football in Manchester. At one point no kid in Manchester was looking anywhere but over towards Man City. That's where he wanted to go. That's where he wanted to train as a footballer. That's not the case anymore. Man City are the preferred destination for so many youngsters. They got the new facilities, they got Guardiola shining in the Premier League, they got the first team, they got everything now. And ManiNight had just played catch-up on the pitch with the first team and off the pitch in so many different regards. And this is a major, major issue because it doesn't just lie with trying to overtake Man City and somehow trying to use up this wonderful team they've got in the Premier League. It's about restructuring the academy, it's about restructuring the club and everything in between. I actually got a video coming out. I'm going to speak with ESPN journalist Rob Dawson on that topic next week. So make sure he checked that out. But the major gripe I have and for me this is the major problem. I have with what Averam Glazer said about Manchester United and how important the youth is to the core of the club. If the youth really was that important to Manchester United and the Glazers then why was Joe Zemarinho made manager of Manchester United? I'm desperate. You all know I'm desperate to see Merino succeed at the club but he's effectively the anti-Christ of youth football promotion. If you're looking at his career history nobody can really deny that. And this isn't an attack on Joe Zemarinho. This is an attack on those in power at Manchester United that are making the decisions because for some time it's been impossible to see a single vision at Manchester United. Decisions left, right and centre make absolutely no sense whatsoever. It seems we get pulled in one direction, fuck up a little bit and then pull in a completely different direction. And appointing Joe Zemarinho goes completely against what Averam Glazer was trying to say about the youth being at the core of Manchester United. If it really was Merino would never have been appointed in the first place at all. We would never have signed Alexis Sanchez in January and stopped Anthony Marciar from continuing on the form he was. There's just so many things that have happened at the club since Fergie retired which go against what Averam Glazer is trying to say in that youth is everything at Manchester United. And until that problem of having a lack of a single vision is resolved at the club and that goes through from the T-Lady to the Kip Man to the first team to the under 18 so the 12th team. Until that single vision is properly shared by everybody, United's problems won't ever be fixed by changing a manager, by changing a player or changing anything else in to do with the football itself. The club has been poorly run for some time and the academy issues that have gone on are only one part of it. But I just wanted to get this off my chest because here in Averam Glazer say that about how important the youth is to Manchester United and how it's one of the core foundations of the club is what I want to hear but it's not what I've seen in the last few years and I think he's just spouting bullshit and I wanted to call him up on it. But let me know what you think about what the Glazer's really think about Manchester United, about the state of our academy, it's the international break, it's a time to reflect and look at the current issues at the club that don't just lie on the football pitch. As always if you new to the channel make sure you subscribe, drop a like on the video, always helps. Until next time take easy.