A club with a much-envied track record of producing homegrown talent for the first team appreciates the bigger picture. Results in Premier League 2 and the Under-18 Premier League will not be the barometer for success but rather whether more teenagers can ultimately join the four men who started the Europa League semi-final with Sevilla (Brandon Williams, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood) in being called upon for such huge fixtures. Overall, eight Academy players made their senior debuts in 2019/20.
As a number of last season's promotion-winning Under-23s squad are likely to depart on loan, with Aliou Traore (Caen) and Tahith Chong (Werder Bremen) already on the move, the emphasis will be on blooding younger players by moving them into older age-groups.