Premier League<\/a> games against Everton and Crystal Palace.<\/p>\nYou will struggle to find a better ball-carrying than Moorhouse. His ability to glide with the ball at speed to breeze beyond opponents makes him a unique option, and he can finish when given the opportunity.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1_GettyImages-2270263956.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Moorhouse opened the scoring.<\/p>\n
Moorhouse is not training day-to-day with the first-team like Lacey. He is currently between the U21s and the senior side, meaning his next challenge is taking that next step to performing consistently.<\/p>\n
Lacey has been promoted to the senior squad on a permanent basis due to a blend of his talent and consistency. He has looked more mature this season, having physically developed in the gym, and he scored the penalty against Madrid like a player at home at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
Darren Fletcher handed around 30 minutes to Lacey against Brighton in the FA Cup fifth round. He was a breath of fresh air down the wing, but was shown a second yellow card for throwing the ball in frustration.<\/p>\n
The ordeal was a crushing blow for Lacey, who apologised for being sent off on social media, but it’s that kind of exposure that has helped him look more mature than his academy peers in youth games.<\/p>\n
Why would Lacey be fazed by taking a penalty in an academy game at Old Trafford when he has played in the venue at full capacity?<\/p>\n
Obi has been leapfrogged by Lacey in terms of first-team involvement, but it was the young striker’s pressing that won the penalty. United academy coaches have worked meticulously with Obi to improve his out-of-possession work, and the pieces have started to gradually fall together.<\/p>\n
“When a coach is tough on players, or they spend more time with them, it means that they really, really believe in the player,” said Lawrence when asked about constant shouts at Obi during academy games.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Lacey extended the advantage.<\/p>\n
Madrid were two goals behind within 15 minutes, but the word from those who observe Spanish football was that they had fielded a strong side themselves. They were not going to roll over, and the momentum shifted in their favour when Gabriel Castrelo made it 2-1 on the stroke of half-time.<\/p>\n
The Reds failed to come out of the traps quickly when play resumed for the second half. Lacey was getting on the ball less often. And then Madrid inevitably equalised, this time through Bruno Iglesias.<\/p>\n
The solo Madrid analyst fist-pumped in the press box as Iglesias celebrated. The school-age home crowd booed, and tried to encourage the red shirts to respond by chanting ‘UNITED, UNITED, UNITED’.<\/p>\n
Nothing split the two teams across 90 minutes and extra-time was required. Lacey pleaded with Lawrence to stay on, but the U21 boss’ body language suggested the decision had already been made before the game.<\/p>\n
It said a lot about Lacey’s character that he was desperate to stay on, not long after returning from a small knock, but there are guaranteed to be more games at Old Trafford for the Liverpool-born lad.<\/p>\n
Madrid forward Jaime Barrosco scored a late winner when the ball kindly fell to him in extra time, and United’s players looked skyward as they trudged back for the restart. They had simply run out of steam, and their heads dropped again when Madrid made it 4-2 with two minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
United had the most difficult quarter-final draw of the three English teams that qualified for the knockout rounds of the competition, and they came the closest to making it to the semi-final stage.<\/p>\n
That’s not bad for an academy that Sir Jim Ratcliffe criticised in October. United’s new academy chief, Stephen Torpey, suggested Ratcliffe was referring to the academy facilities when he said standards had “slipped”, but it was an ill-informed, clear dig at the entire operation.<\/p>\n
Not many youth teams in England can go toe-to-toe for 120 minutes with Real Madrid Castilla. United’s youngsters should be proud of their effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man United U21s lost 4-2 against Real Madrid in the Premier League International Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,3213,1441,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-manchester-united-academy","10":"tag-manchester-united-fc","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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