Henriquez Settling Well

Summer signing Angelo Henriquez is settling in well at United, according to Reserves boss Warren Joyce.

The Chilean teenager scored on his debut for the club in the recent 4-2 win against Newcastle Under-21s but struggled to see too much of the ball at Sunderland as he was tightly marked by two big centre-halves.

Although Henriquez was effectively ploughing a lone furrow in attack, Joyce has stressed that the plan was for Federico Macheda and Joshua King to offer more support from wider roles to prevent the 18-year-old from becoming isolated.

"It's a long-term project," explained Joyce to MUTV. "Angelo is a great lad. He's come to the country and fitted in well.

"He's working hard in training but we had three forwards up there [at Sunderland] even if we didn't play like that in the first half. It wasn't just one up front - we had three forwards looking for rotations but we didn't retain the ball long enough to get into positions where we could develop those situations."

Henriquez was replaced by Reece James with 16 minutes remaining but he managed one of United's best attempts on goal following a sharp turn and will have learned plenty from the experience on a wet Wearside evening.

Meanwhile, defender Marnick Vermijl was withdrawn from the line-up ahead of kick-off against the Black Cats on Monday in order to avoid the risk of aggravating an injury.

"Marnick's just got a little bit of feeling that he had from the first-team game the other night [against Newcastle]," explained Joyce. "To be fair to Marnick, he played in the first team on very little training really so it was a credit to him to be able do that.

"He was still suffering a little bit from it and we can't afford to risk it when he's not quite sure and he could get something and be out for a long time."

Warren Joyce's table-topping Under-21s are next in action on Monday night with a home game against second-placed Southampton at Moss Lane.