Why Hansen's erroneous 'kids' line still resonates

It was 30 years ago this week when Phil Neville and Paul Scholes were among the few Manchester United players who could even bring themselves to watch Match of the Day on the opening day of the 1995-96 season.

- MIGUEL DELANEY CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER

They consequently got to witness a piece of punditry that everyone around the training ground – and the Premier League – would be talking about the next day.

“You can’t win anything with kids,” Alan Hansen famously stated after United’s 3-1 defeat to Aston Villa, almost saying that notorious line in passing. The worst part was that many of United’s “kids” agreed with him. “Hansen just said what everyone was thinking,” Nicky Butt would later admit.

For some of the players, though, the worst words were something else. Hansen had been summing up United’s issues in that authoritative staccato style, and immediately added something that really stung. “You look at that Manchester United lineup today and Aston Villa, when they get the team sheet, it’s just going to give them a lift. It will happen every time he plays the kids.”

And yet, when that team sheet came through on that blazing afternoon at Villa Park, Mark Bosnich recalls that it wasn’t the names that caused a reaction. United had already sold Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis without replacements, after all, which had created weeks of debate. Villa were primed for that. The absences of Ryan Giggs, Steve Bruce, Andy Cole and - notably - suspended kung fu enthusiast Eric Cantona further forced Alex Ferguson’s hand. He had to throw most of the kids in. He didn't have to set them up in the way he did, though. “The biggest thing that stood out was they started with three at the back,” Villa goalkeeper Bosnich reveals. Gary Neville, Gary Pallister and Paul Parker were the centre-halves, with Phil Neville and Denis Irwin as wing-backs. The formation was fashionable at the time, but Ferguson had never really played it before, and barely played it afterwards. For a reason.