Man Utd’s young stars ‘learned a lot’ last season, says Nemanja Vidić

Manchester United captain Nemanja Vidić believes the club's youngsters have "learned a lot" from last season

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By TSR staff Tuesday 7 August 2012, 16:16 UK

Nemanja Vidić suffered a season-ending injury in DecemberPhoto: marc_tacoma, via Flickr

Nemanja Vidic

Nemanja Vidić believes Manchester United’s young stars have “learned a lot” over the past year which will benefit the 19-time champions next season.

The Red Devils captain suffered a season-ending knee injury last December which resulted in Sir Alex Ferguson placing his faith in Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling.

United were pipped to the Premier League title by Manchester City, but Vidić is confident the Old Trafford outfit will show an improvement this season as the Red Devils looks to reclaim their crown.

“We had some young players play a lot of games last season and they’ll have learned a lot. We all learned,” Vidić told the club’s website.

“In Europe we’ve had so much success in recent years – we’ve had three finals, a semi-final – and maybe we relaxed a bit last season.

“We were punished and we can’t allow that to happen again. We had a few injuries last season too. I hope everyone can stay fit this season.

“The young players can learn from last year, so I’m confident we’ll be better this year.”

Vidić is also confident United will reap the rewards of a rigorous pre-season campaign, which includes a friendly against Barcelona on Wednesday, when they kick-off their league title bid at Goodison Park on 20 August.

“You want hard games during pre-season. We want to be prepared as best we can for the first game against Everton,” he added.

“I think it’s important to have tough games before the beginning of the season and hopefully one of those will be Barcelona – actually, I know one of those will be Barcelona.

“But I think both us and Barcelona are concerned more with fitness and playing good football at this time of the season than we are with winning.

“Everything we’re doing is geared towards being ready for the start of the new season.

“For me, it was really good to have 60 minutes in Oslo. Hopefully I’ll play even longer against Barcelona and I should be fit for the beginning of the season.”