Manchester United academy chief Nick Cox says the players are excited ahead of their UEFA Youth League clash with Borussia Dortmund.

United meet BVB in the round of 16 this week.

“Everyone’s really excited that we’re playing against top opposition,” Cox told the club’s website.

“Of course, at this stage of the competition, all the teams left in it are really good teams, but you want to play against the very best.

“The boys want to make progress, they want to get to a final. That’s part of our thinking, but for me and for our staff, it’s about how do we regularly put our players up against the very best so that we can learn, develop and improve. So the chance to play a high-profile fixture against European opposition is one that we welcome.”

Cox continued: “We’re going to learn different stuff.

“What happens in our normal games programme is our boys actually become really familiar with the opposition. For some of our boys, they may have been playing against the same opponents since they were nine years old, and you slowly learn to work out how to solve the problem.

“Hopefully what will happen against Dortmund is that we’ll see a few conundrums that we’ve never faced before and the boys will have to work it out quickly and learn, and then put that learning into their toolbox for further on in their careers.”

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