Earlier this year, The Athletic asked Manchester United subscribers what they would like to read.
Olumuyiwa S, Rob M and Vaageesh T were among those to suggest pieces about what former academy players are up to now. So, we’re going to start a series about Life after Manchester United, and the first piece is this interview with Charlie Savage. We hope you enjoy it.
When I ask Charlie Savage how he has changed as a player since stepping down to League One, I quickly realise my mistake.
“Stepping down?” he asks.
He’s right to pull me up on a point that is central to his story since leaving Manchester United and joining Reading two years ago.
“A lot of people said to me it was stepping down, but if Reading played the United (under-)21s I was playing for, we’d beat them. All my mates said to me, ‘Why are you going to Reading?’ People think if you play for United, you’re playing for the first team. But I wasn’t.”
Savage could still be a United player now, in name at least. The contract he signed in 2022 would still have a few months left to run. Instead, he asked for a move.
Still only 21 years old, he has more than 100 senior games to his name, two international caps with Wales, and is a first-team regular in a side that is unbeaten in 10 games and challenging for a play-off spot.
Savage rejects the notion that he stepped down (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
Life is rarely straightforward, though. Last week, it emerged that Reading’s owner Dai Yongge had been disqualified under the EFL’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test and served a deadline to divest his interests in the club, now set at April 5.
After three consecutive seasons of points deductions and relegation to the third tier, there is a risk that the 153-year-old club, which was playing Premier League football only 12 years ago, could be suspended by the EFL before the season ends, putting its very existence at risk.
It is an extreme example of the reality that awaits many young players when they leave a Premier League club for what Savage now calls “proper football” — the sharp edge where the potential that was nurtured in academies is honed and, hopefully, realised.
Savage began training with United’s pre-academy programme as a five-year-old having been spotted in a mini-tournament at the former Soccerdome, a sports complex of small-sided pitches, a few miles away from Old Trafford.
There were sessions with Manchester City’s pre-academy too, although those stopped once they realised who his dad was. “Apparently, they said that footballers’ kids weren’t hungry enough,” he says.
Savage’s dad — Robbie, the former Wales midfielder turned pundit and manager-owner of non-league side Macclesfield — was questioning the wisdom of his five-year-old son entering the system anyway, no more so than during one of Charlie’s first sessions at United.
“He came to watch with my mum, and I couldn’t put my bib on properly,” Savage recalls. “I could hear him in the gantry: ‘What are we doing? He’s too young! Why have we brought him here?’”
Savage was smaller than many of the other kids in United’s pre-academy, but he made up for that in technical ability. It was the same for Zidane Iqbal, who Savage had played against when Alderley Edge Nomads met Iqbal’s Sale United on the Soccerdome pitches.
He and Iqbal would form a close bond over the next 15 years, sharing 40-minute car journeys from school to training two or three days a week, defying the academy system’s unforgiving odds as they moved up the age groups.
Savage playing for United in 2018 (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
One of their many mentors was Tony Whelan, the legendary United academy coach who recently departed the club. Savage describes Whelan as a “cultural architect” for his role in imparting knowledge of United’s history, tradition and standards to young players.
On one trip away, Whelan found out a youngster had smuggled in sweets. Then he discovered most of the others had too. “There was a line about 500 metres long, every single sweet you could imagine,” Savage says, with a touch of exaggeration. Whelan fumed and Savage, he swears, has not eaten sweets since.
“Looking back, not only did it teach you about being a footballer, it taught you about fuelling yourself right, respecting people. Every morning we had to shake every coach’s hand and look them in the eye.”
Incentives would be drip-fed, like no coloured boots until scholarship. His eyes widen when recalling the “short, white Adidas socks” that he was permitted as an under-21s player, meaning he no longer had to wear big shinpads.
“I saw something earlier saying all the under-13s are back wearing black boots — to me, that’s what the United academy is. Respectful kids becoming better people and better footballers.”
And then there was the club suit. Savage still has three of them hanging up in a wardrobe at home in Manchester as reminders of the moment he graduated to the first team.
Savage’s abiding memory of the nine or so minutes that comprised his United debut in December 2021 is how exhausting it was. “I was blowing,” he says.
As he and Iqbal waited to come on — wearing squad numbers 72 and 73 — Ralf Rangnick asked him to mark one of Young Boys’ centre-backs at set pieces. “I think he was 6ft 6 (198.1cm). I was thinking, ‘Please don’t go for a corner’. First thing that happened after I came on? A corner.”
He wasn’t in the academy anymore. “If there’s VAR, I can’t drag him down or anything,” he thought. “I’m just going to have to grip him as hard as I can.” Fortunately, Tom Heaton, another academy debutant that night at the age of 35, came and collected the cross.
Savage made it through those nine minutes, taking five touches. He knew the first ball he played had to be safe. It was. “I found a little reverse pass to Zidane.” Their journey from the Soccerdome to Old Trafford was complete.
Iqbal and Savage come on against Young Boys in 2021 (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
That summer, Savage was keen to impress the incoming Erik ten Hag and spent weeks working on his fitness: hiring a personal coach, attending camps in Portugal and training at Macclesfield’s ground.
Upon the squad’s return, United’s coaching staff were surprised to see Savage top the charts in running tests. “That was maybe why (Ten Hag) took me on that pre-season,” he says, but one thing he had not prepared for was just how intense touring can be.
“Land, train, with no rest,” he recalls. The raft of sponsor events and media duties that followed could be mentally overwhelming. “You’d be that tired, you’d pass out. Then you’d be up again at seven, and you didn’t have a day off. That was two or three weeks straight.”
In between came the small matter of the games and opportunities to stake his claim. Savage impressed playing alongside Iqbal during the 4-0 win against Liverpool in Bangkok, earning plaudits back home. More minutes came on the Australian leg of the tour, but at that point, the schedule was beginning to take its toll.
“It came to week three, I was a young lad and I was trying so hard to impress a new manager, I was giving 110 per cent every day, my legs just went. And if you come off one per cent up against all those world-class players, it’s going to show.”
Part of him wonders whether, if he had held himself back slightly on that tour and trained with a touch more nous, he would not have been training with the under-21s again shortly after returning to Manchester.
Ten Hag was impressed enough to rule out loan moves for both him and Iqbal, as he was keen to keep them in reserve for the Carabao Cup, but those opportunities did not materialise. He was desperate to return to any first-team environment, but would have to wait until January.
The day Savage arrived at Forest Green, the manager who had just signed him on loan was sacked. “I just turned up and it was: ‘You’re on that pitch over there’.” No inductions, no introductions, no announcement yet either. “The lads were asking: ‘Who are you?’ I was like, ‘I’ve just signed!’”
Duncan Ferguson’s appointment a few days later did not bode well, particularly as a further loan signing took Forest Green’s total to six. Only five could be included in the matchday squad.
Initially, Savage was the one to miss out, but he eventually got his opportunity in midfield, then up front. In all, he made 15 appearances, scoring once — Forest Green’s goal of the season — on the way to finishing bottom of League One.
«My boy has scored!» 💚
The heartwarming moment @RobbieSavage8 realises his son Charlie has scored his first senior goal for @FGRFC_Official. pic.twitter.com/1nFQS7yGGT
— BT Sport Score (@btsportscore) March 11, 2023
A loan where an academy player plays out of position, under a different manager than intended and suffers relegation could easily be considered a mistake. What that ignores, Savage says, is that any exposure to the realities of senior competitive football was beneficial.
“Even though we didn’t win too many games, for me it was such a humbling experience to have another view on football and to see lads who have to pay their mortgages with three points and win bonuses, who’ve got kids,” he says.
“It was different for me, I was on loan. I could just go back in the summer. Even though it still hurt me when we got relegated, I could see how much it hurt the other players, and I thought I never want to be relegated in my career.
“It affects them financially. Maybe people think you’re not good enough, so maybe you won’t play next year, maybe they’ll get a worse contract somewhere else. Their career is so different when they get relegated. It opened my eyes to the importance of three points and how ruthless it can be.”
On the pitch, he found one of the main contrasts was set pieces. “In academy football, if someone loses their man, nobody really says anything.” In the academy, Savage was used to judging himself on how many through balls he played. Now, dead balls were where points were won and lost.
“I came off in one game, I had scratches all over me, I had bruises. One guy headbutted me when I was about to head the ball in. I’ll be marking somebody as they’re about to run, they jab you in the ribs or throw you and elbow you.”
It was a different game, but one Savage began to relish. After returning to United, he captained the club he supports in his final appearance, taking the armband from Raphael Varane for the second half of a pre-season friendly against Leeds. But even then, he knew he had reached a crossroads.
Savage joined Reading shortly after, on their few days between transfer embargoes. Time was so tight, he did not get to say goodbye to those at Carrington he is “forever indebted” to, instead sending out messages and bottles of wine.
There was no fee. Reading could not pay one. United instead secured a significant sell-on percentage. “They could’ve been like, ‘No, you can’t leave, we see a transfer value in you,’ but they could see I was ready to go out and start my career.”
Despite Reading’s difficulties, their history, support and record of developing young players outweighed any concerns about the financial picture. Yet, by late October, Savage was back to where he had been with Forest Green: at the bottom of League One.
Savage celebrates scoring against Bolton in 2023 (David Horton/CameraSport/Getty Images)
“I was in a bit of a dark place,” he admits, as he realised the gamble he had taken. “I knew I could’ve still been at United. I’m at Reading, the fans are storming onto the pitch.” Protests against Yongge’s ownership regularly included barrages of tennis balls.
After a defeat away at Leyton Orient, he heard his first-ever chorus of: “You’re not fit to wear the shirt.” He recognises that the fans had a point. “When we were getting beat, we probably weren’t good enough back then to play for a club like Reading.”
And yet, over the months that followed, Savage realised he had made the best decision of his career. More experienced team-mates offered support — including fellow United academy player Sam Smith, now at Wrexham. “I put everything into the gym, I got stronger, I learned how to play men’s football.”
Reading’s form recovered last season to a 17th-place finish. A year and a half later, Savage is regularly playing 90 minutes in an energetic, box-to-box role and believes he is a completely different player. “Ten times more effective,” in fact.
“They’ve allowed me to grow. They knew I wouldn’t be a finished article at the start, but because I picked a club where I knew I’d get more chances to play, they’ve allowed me to progress.” He is grateful for that, and to the fans, too.
“We had a team of 18- or 19-year-olds last season. The fact they stuck with us and supported us means that we’re now 19- or 20-year-olds with a year’s experience under our belts.” The second-youngest squad in League One, despite the most trying of circumstances, has designs on promotion to the Championship.
Reading’s difficulties have also forced Savage to take on personal responsibilities that were always catered for at academy level.
Since the club cut back on overnight stays for away trips, Savage has been paying for his own accommodation to ensure he has the best night’s sleep. When food provision had to be reduced to microwave meals, he hired a nutritionist.
“I’ve had so many experiences in football that some 30-year-olds might not have had,” he says, but experiences he is thankful for. “I’ve got an association and a bond with the club and the Reading fans, which is special to me, and it’s a club which I hold so dear to my heart.”
All he, his team-mates, the staff and those supporters can hope is that a resolution is found before next Saturday’s deadline, the worst case scenario can be averted, and the promise that this campaign still holds can survive.
“Sometimes when you go through adversity, it makes the bond stronger, and I feel bonded to the club because the fans will always remember me as somebody who is there during the darkest days, and hopefully I’m able to help them get up a division.”
Savage made his senior Wales debut in 2023 after joining Reading (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Leaving an academy like United’s does not extinguish hopes of competing at the highest level possible.
“The goal is still to play in the Premier League, to play as much as I can for Wales and if I keep playing at Reading and doing well, when I’m 22 or 23, I can make that step up to the Championship, hopefully with Reading,” Savage says.
Amid the hype that increasingly surrounds youngsters in United’s system and elsewhere, it is easy to forget that very few will ever reach such levels. “There’s players at 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds in United’s academy who fans hype up to be the next Ronaldo or Messi whereas realistically they might not even get in a League One or League Two team,” Savage says.
“I see it all the time on my phone, ‘This kid’s the next thing.’ It’s the worst it’s ever been. I was hyped up, Zidane was hyped up — so many were. But there were also people who weren’t hyped up and have made it, and others who were hyped up as the best-ever and haven’t.”
What’s missing, Savage says, is an appreciation of just how talented a lot of players in the EFL are and of how difficult it is to forge a career at that level.
“When you’re at United, you think, ‘Do I really want to go and play in League One or League Two? Will I be happy?’” He thinks of former academy team-mates without a club, who might have refused a move to that level before. “Now they’d bite your hand off.
“I see people say that if he doesn’t make it to United’s first team, he’s a flop. No. There’s no such thing as a ‘flop’. There’re just steps to success, steps to where you want to get to.” And as Savage would argue, leaving the academy is often not a step down but a step forward.
(Photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
