Sir Alex Ferguson used to tell Manchester United’s young players that a youth side containing Gerard Pique, Giuseppe Rossi, Danny Simpson, Ryan Shawcross and Jonny Evans had been beaten at home to Stoke City in the opening round of the 2004-05 FA Youth Cup.
He was trying to ease the pressure before big cup games and his point was: you can lose this one and still have a fantastic career, so relax, and play to the ability which has got you to United in the first place. And if there is to be disappointment, it’s all part of football and get used to how much you dislike that feeling right now.
Manchester United named a very strong side to play Liverpool in the FA Youth Cup fourth round. United have made a big focus on youth, paying millions for teenagers. Several started against their greatest rivals on a sunny afternoon as Neil Ryan’s side hoped to move towards a record 11th FA Youth Cup but United’s first in a decade.
In normal circumstances, the game would have been shifted to Old Trafford and attracted a five-figure crowd for the young players and fans to experience, but these are not normal times and an empty stadium 12 miles west of Manchester was the venue.
Ryan’s under 18s are top of the league and had already beaten Liverpool home and away this season. Ryan, son of former United assistant manager Jimmy, put five players into the side who are regulars in United’s under 23's team. This was contrasted with the previous round against Salford City when United fielded an inexperienced team – nine of the players had never played an FA Youth Cup match before. That all changed against Liverpool but the shape of the usual 18s side was so disrupted that the winning machine stopped winning.
Shola Shoretire has played first team football recently for United, Hannibal Mejbri cost €10 million ($11.76m) from Monaco, Alvaro Fernandez came from Real Madrid, Marc Jurado from Barcelona. Joe Hugill, 17, had scored four goals away to Liverpool’s under 23s, but struggled to create a single chance. Top finisher Charlie McNeill, with 15 goals in as many games, has shone since joining from Manchester City earlier this season.
United had won all four league games in March, top the under 18s Premier League and had reason to be confident, but youth football is as inconsistent as youth players. Liverpool went ahead after 14 minutes – a fine cross from full-back James Norris bending a ball to Tyler Morton to glance a header past Czech goalkeeper Radek Vitek.
United were slow to start and it wasn’t until the 28th minute that Mejbri took a shot on goal. The tricky Frenchman, usually the most fouled player in the side, was United’s biggest threat, but that wasn’t much. Charlie Savage was neat in midfield, but the first half was a disappointment.
United had more urgency in the second, Fernandez seeing a 50th minute effort from short range cleared off the line. Hannibal showed his quick feet before hitting the post two minutes later.
Liverpool went down to 10 men after 67 minutes when Norris lunged studs up on Jurado but United struggled to take advantage of the extra man, with the wide men ineffective and unable to deliver crosses. Liverpool merely sat back and soaked up the pressure. Shoretire dribbled the ball into the box but couldn’t get a shot off, while there were appeals for a penalty when Fernandez’s cross was blocked.
An underwhelming United performance meant elimination and significant disappointment. For some of these players, it will be their only shot at the FA Youth Cup. They won’t be the first United side full of talent to go out of the competition, but it also showed how football lends itself to disappointment and the United players received a significant dose of that. Captain Martin Svidersky sat on the pitch after the game, alone and upset. The development of the young players is the priority rather than individual results, but any game between United and Liverpool is all about the result.
It’s now a decade since United met Liverpool in the quarter-finals on the way to their last FA Youth triumph in 2011. Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Sam Johnstone, Michael Keane, and Ravel Morrison were in that side while Harry Maguire played for finalists Sheffield United, but United’s youth system was left behind by those of Chelsea and Manchester City.
Liverpool progressed too and won the competition in 2019, beating a Manchester City who’ve been losing finalists four times since 2015. City did win the competition last season, Chelsea have won the competition seven times in the last decade.
With Manchester City going out to Everton on Saturday, Liverpool will be favourites with Chelsea this season. Liverpool play at Leicester in the next round.
There’s been a lot of noise about the exciting youngsters at United and the 18s are justifying it in the league, but in the cup they’ll have to wait another season before going again.
The bio
Date of Birth: April 25, 1993
Place of Birth: Dubai, UAE
Marital Status: Single
School: Al Sufouh in Jumeirah, Dubai
University: Emirates Airline National Cadet Programme and Hamdan University
Job Title: Pilot, First Officer
Number of hours flying in a Boeing 777: 1,200
Number of flights: Approximately 300
Hobbies: Exercising
Nicest destination: Milan, New Zealand, Seattle for shopping
Least nice destination: Kabul, but someone has to do it. It’s not scary but at least you can tick the box that you’ve been
Favourite place to visit: Dubai, there’s no place like home
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
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