Youth boss Eric Kinder spoke to us about the 2-2 away draw at Oldham on Saturday - the under-18 team's first away game of the new season.
“We started the game well but we couldn’t sustain it,” he said. “Taylor [Charters] scored after five minutes with a left-footed volley, and we hoped they could carry on as they did against Blackpool on Tuesday, but Oldham were slightly better than Blackpool in my opinion.
“It was a poor game overall. We made too many bad decisions and we didn’t keep possession well enough. We played backwards too much and we were a bit disappointed at the end of the game really. We come away with a point, but we should and could have won the game."
“We went 1-0 and 2-1 up, and we should be better than we were and able to win the game from there," he told us. "I can’t criticise the lads for their effort, and I said to them after the game that you can’t play well every week, you just have to try. In the end, to be fair to Oldham and when you think about how the game went as a whole, 2-2 was probably the right result.
“One of the pleasing things is that it's always good when second years are getting goals. Taylor carried on from Tuesday with another good finish and Josh [Galloway] took a free kick from 25-yards out, which he smashed into the top corner with the help of a slight deflection."
On twice taking the lead in the game, he commented: “When you aren’t playing that well but you get yourself ahead for the second time in the game, that's when you just want to see it out.
"Unfortunately we conceded a second and the game just fizzled out after that. The draw was the right result and I don’t think either side will be particularly happy with their performance.
“It’s an unbeaten start to the season but everyone always wants more. I was disappointed with the performance compared to Tuesday, but at the end of it we have to be happy that we came away with a good point."
Next for the young Blues is a trip to Hungary with the Erasmus+ project, and a chance for some team bonding as they go up against three local teams.
“We go to Budapest for two weeks now and we have three games where we can try different things," he explained. "I always said I wanted to go away with two league wins, but we’ve got one and a draw, and by the time we come back it will nearly be September and we can have a right good go at the league.
“We’ll work on a few things out there and try different formations in the friendlies, and when we come back we’ll hopefully have found one which suits us.
"If you look at our pre-season, we haven’t really had one in terms of matches because we haven’t consistently had the same group of lads. We’re a bit short of game prep, but we’ll get that while we’re away.”
United – Robinson, Barnes, Birch, Walton, Wilson ©, Lightfoot, Bell (Rooks 77), Armstrong (Day 70), Soper (Leslie 55), Charters, Galloway. Subs – Steele, Simons.
Goals – Charters (5), Galloway (67)
