Slade was a manager who knew he was out of his depth so couldn't afford to risk trying out younger players. The pressure was always on him from day one so it didn't surprise me too much that he didn't give them much of a chance (frustrated the hell out of me though).

It's often surprising how one manager doesn't see much potential in a player, but then a new manager comes in and things change (or vice versa). The one thing I liked about Solskjaer (remember him?) was that he gave a fair few young players a chance in a relatively short space of time.