EVANS ABOVE

Last updated : 06 October 2006 By Ed

The Times about Jonny Evans, currently on loan at Antwerp:

Evans has been playing for United since he was 9, and if his performance in that thrilling 3-2 win against Spain at Windsor Park last month is anything to go by, he could in time be lining up alongside Torres, not as an opponent, but as a team-mate.

It remains a tall order, but Evans is nothing if not confident and as a member of a select band of players, including Giuseppe Rossi, Gerard Piqué and Phil Bardsley, who are being tipped to follow in the footsteps of the so-called "Class of 92", the defender is determined to succeed where so many others have failed.

Only four players — Wes Brown, John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson — have progressed from the youth ranks to regulars in the first-team squad at United in the 14 years since David Beckham and Paul Scholes exploded on to the scene.

Indeed, Evans need only listen to his room-mate on international trips, David Healy, to know how hard it is to make the grade at United. Northern Ireland's record goalscorer and the hat-trick hero against Spain, Healy joined Preston North End after accepting that he had no future at Old Trafford. "I've spoken to David about his time with United," Evans said. "He knows how tough it is to break through there. I don't want that happening to me, but I never worry about it. I just try to do my own thing.

"It has been said that [my age group now] compares with those who came through in 1992, but you can't compare us with players like those who have achieved so much. It is good to hear those comparisons, though, that's the level we have to get to."

As much as Evans impressed Ferguson against Spain, and will hope to do so again when Northern Ireland resume their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign against Denmark tomorrow, the defender discovered at United's Carrington training headquarters on Monday what it is like to err on the wrong side of the manager.

Evans was sent off for Royal Antwerp — United's Belgian feeder club, where he is on loan until January — for the second game in succession at the weekend, only to bump into Ferguson on his first morning back in Manchester. "The first person I saw as I sat there eating my breakfast [at Carrington] was Sir Alex and he made a joke about me getting sent off," Evans said. "It's not something I want to repeat in a hurry."