Shola Shoretire makes Manchester United history as Amad Diallo shows promise vs Real Sociedad

Amad and Shoretire are highly rated at Old Trafford
Manchester United via Getty Images
Tom Doyle25 February 2021

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has told Manchester United to expect to see more of Amad Diallo and Shola Shoretire this season after the two featured off the bench against Real Sociedad.

Having secured a surprisingly comprehensive 4-0 win in last week's first leg in Turin, the Red Devils knew progress from the round of 32 was all but assured heading into the return fixture at Old Trafford.

United and Sociedad played out a forgettable 0-0 draw in the second leg, but Thursday's match will go down in the history books after Shoretire's record-breaking late introduction.

Having made his debut as a substitute in Sunday's league win against Newcastle, he replaced Norman Whiteside as the youngest player to represent United in European competition by coming on aged 17 years 23 days.

"Shola is going to be a good player for us and sometimes you need to test them against good players," Solskjaer said. "We knew Real Sociedad are a good team with good individuals and they press.”

January arrival Amad was also bright off the bench, and Solskjaer says the two are likely to get more similar chances to bed them into the first team.

Amad showed flashes off the bench
AFP via Getty Images

"We felt today Amad (Diallo) - he had to come on, of course, Dan (James) had to come off - and Shola, the two of them will need these little introductions to this type of level.

"He's a young kid that we believe in. Great attitude.

"You can see the shape of him. We think physically he'll be an athlete and technically very, very good. Makes good decisions.

"So, of course we're going to gradually feed him into this team and, you know, he's grounded, got his feet firmly on the ground and he works really hard in training.

"Very likeable boy that we hope we can see loads of in the future.”

Additional reporting by PA.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in