Spurs U21s 1-3 Liverpool U21s

Our Under-21s were made to pay for defensive errors as Liverpool won a key game at the top of the Barclays U21 Premier League at the Lane on Friday night.

Ryan Kent punished a wayward pass to hand the Reds an early lead and Samid Yesil took advantage as we failed to clear our lines twice to make it 3-0 just four minutes into the second half.

We simply gave ourselves too much to do - but our young team refused to throw in the towel, reduced arrears through Will Miller on 78 minutes and pushed to the final whistle.

Key action

The game went off at a frantic pace as our box came under a barrage of Liverpool pressure inside the opening stages. We struggled to clear our lines effectively and when a stray clearance fell kindly for Liverpool, Kent slotted coolly past Luke McGee to break the deadlock.

Yesil almost doubled the visitor’s lead a minute later before Kenny McEvoy sparked us into life with a weaving run down the right before cutting in and going one on one with Lawrence Vigouroux who stood up to beat his shot away.

The chance seemed to give us a platform on which to build as we grew into the game with skipper Etienne Capoue firing narrowly over after more good work from McEvoy.

The pace of McEvoy and Miller down the flanks provided an outlet for us as we started to dictate more of the play.

Our task would become trickier though as the Reds grabbed a second just before the half-hour mark.

Having spurned an earlier chance, Yesil made no mistake with a precise finish on the angle from 12 yards as again we struggled to clear the danger inside our own box.

It would stay that way until the interval as despite probing again down the flanks we failed to test Vigouroux.

Unfortunately things got worse soon after the restart as a cross from the right caused problems in the box before Yesil pounced again to rifle a shot past McGee into the top corner.

Josh Onomah fired an effort narrowly over from distance before Harry Winks forced Vigouroux to palm behind a looping free-kick as we sought a way back into the game.

Daniel Akandayini and Ismail Azzaoui entered the action just before the hour mark and the pair combined straight away with the former flicking into the path of the latter who volleyed a shot into the side netting from a tight angle.

We remained patient and were handed a lifeline with 15 minutes to go through the head of Miller. Kyle Walker-Peters did well to dig out a cross from the right and Miller climbed well to head into the corner.

We continued to pour forward, Ogilvie just failed to connect with Miller's free-kick and Vigouroux cut out a cross destined for Akindayini but we couldn't find a second goal to show for our efforts.

Ugo Ehiogu said

“It was really disappointing,” said coach Ugo. “We gifted the goals away with poor decision making at the back. We want to play out but sometimes we have to look at the position we’re in, make a judgement and deal with it and we didn’t do that well.

“The players are all gutted and the staff as well because to get beaten on our own turf, convincingly as well - I thought Liverpool were better than us on the night - was really disappointing.

“We used some choice phrases after the game and the biggest thing is the players now have to learn from it. If they do, we can take it on the chin. They have to be man enough to take that criticism, to reflect and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Match data

Spurs U21s: McGee, Walker-Peters, Ogilvie, Capoue (c) (Lesniak 72), Maghoma, Carter-Vickers, McEvoy, Winks (Azzaoui 57), Harrison (Akindayini 57), Onomah, Miller. Substitutes (not used): Amos, Miles (GK).

Liverpool U21s: Vigouroux, Whelan, Hart, Randall (c), Cleary, O'Hanlan, Canos (Ejaria 87), Trickett-Smith (Pelosi 62), Yesil (Gomes 67), Kent, Wilson. Substitutes (not used): Brewitt, Firth (GK).