Man Utd academy chief exit leaves big shoes to fill

It was lost amid the new fixtures coming out and the row over Manchester United's ticket price rise but Nick Cox's decision to leave the club to take over as technical director at Everton is pretty big.

United is built on its youth programme. There has been a home-grown player, or someone from the academy in their squad for every first-team match since October 1937, a run of over 4,000 games.

I have spoken to a lot of people in the game over the past 24 hours and all say Cox will be a huge loss to United when he eventually steps aside as academy chief.

The role has evolved hugely in the modern game but to underline what the person heading the academy is in charge of, there is a link through coaching from the Busby Babes through Wilf McGuiness, to the likes of Tony Whelan, Brian Kidd, Eric Harrison and Paul McGuiness of those people who are either steeped in United history, or stayed so long to shape the club's youth strategy.

Compared to signing Matheus Cunha or, probably, Bryan Mbeumo, the identity of Cox's replacement will not grab headlines.

But it will be fascinating to see whether the club goes for someone with United connections, or someone known to technical director Jason Wilcox, or someone completely detatched.

Either way, as with the first team, United need to get the recruitment right, particularly given they are also looking for an under-18 coach following the departure of Adam Lawrence and have a vacancy in their PL2 set-up after assistant coach David Hughes took the manager's job at Newport.