Brandon Williams: The boy who has no fear
After the seniors returned from the Far East later that month, Williams was again missing as a 26-man party flew to face Kristiansund in Norway. Instead, the left-back remained with Neil Wood’s U23s, competing in a 4-3 win over Ballymena United in Northern Ireland while Solskjaer’s squad were en route to Scandinavia.
By the end of September, Solskjaer’s stock of full-backs had dwindled following injuries to Luke Shaw and Diogo Dalot, while Williams’s early-season displays for the U23s – in which he usually wore the captain’s armband – had earned him a nomination for the division’s Player of the Month award, plus a first England U20 cap.
Within a week of being put forward for the award, the 19-year-old had been called up to the first-team squad and left the bench to make his senior debut in United’s Carabao Cup shoot-out win over Rochdale. Since then, the Crumpsall-born full-back has provided one of the more eye-catching subplots of the Reds’ season to date.
