United fans are not only being asked to accept that their once great club can no longer compete for the worlds great players, we can no longer even afford to keep our own developed young talent.

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But while the reams of statistics that back these articles are usually treated as lamentable, what most of their authors fail to realize is that we only have to look to our inner cities to see how potentially dangerous young men become when they no longer buy into fatherhood and by extension the civilizing influences that families bequeath.

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