United U18s 1-0 Spurs - John's verdict

John McDermott remained upbeat despite a narrow reverse for our Under-18s at Manchester United.

The Red Devils claimed a 1-0 win at Carrington on Saturday, Ashley Fletcher finishing off a swift counter-attack to net the only goal of the game just before the hour mark in the Barclays Under-18 Premier League.

We still enjoyed large spells of possession, Shayon Harrison forcing a fine save from United stopper Joel Pereira towards the end, but we were unable to turn our impressive build-up play into goals.

Academy Manager John saw plenty of positives despite the scoreline: “It was a good game,” he summed up. “Manchester United are always very tough opponents and they were similarly so on Saturday.

“We did a lot of good things and some of our build-up play was of real high quality.

“Although we dominated possession, United set counter-attack traps and caused us problems on two or three occasions. They scored from a turnover on the half-way line and got the result in the end.”

John picked out a handful of players for praise including centre-half Cameron Carter-Vickers, who was particularly solid in defence.

“I was really pleased with Cameron, I thought he had another excellent game,” John added. “Anton Walkes in midfield was very good, Anthony Georgiou was dangerous throughout and it was good to see Charlie Hayford come on. He’s another Under-16 player who has been introduced in a big game and he acquitted himself really well, so there were far more positives than negatives on Saturday.”