Manchester United boss David Moyes has explained the raft of loan departures during January.

Ten youngsters left Old Trafford on a temporary basis including Wilfried Zaha (Cardiff City), Federico Macheda, Tom Thorpe and Tyler Blackett (all Birmingham City) and Charni Ekangamene and Sam Byrne (both Carlisle United).

"We want to give them some experience of senior football," Moyes told MUTV. "They have played a lot of reserves football but will be hoping to get a game on a Saturday for a league team. A few of them will get some match practice, hopefully.

"Part of their development when they are in the youth team is making the next step to the reserves and then you want to get into the first team. But you find the jump between the reserves and first team is so big nowadays.

"Actually, the games programme is probably not the best in this country. The difference between an Under-21 game and a Premier League game is so big, what tends to happen is these boys like to get some games and ask: 'Can we go on loan?'

"It gives us the chance to see them in league football. We have staff who watch all the games and reports are brought back on how they are doing. It is part of their development. Maybe, in time, if there was a different sort of games programme, we wouldn't need to put players out on loan."