Mehmet Ali praised the quality of football on display as our under-21s beat Newcastle United 2-1 in the Premier League 2 play-offs on Friday night.
Nathan Butler-Oyedeji’s first half penalty gave us a deserved lead, but Scott Patrick Bailey equalised seconds after the break.
The game looked to be heading for extra time, but Khayon Edwards came off the bench to score a 93rd-minute penalty and send us through to the quarter-finals.
On the performance…
“I thought it was a really good advert for under-21s football, in a play-off game. Credit to Newcastle, I think from the last time we played them to tonight, it was a really difficult game for us.
“I thought the way we started the game was brilliant, we were on top and we got into some really good areas, we just lacked that quality in the final third.
“In the second half, I thought they were really good at disrupting our flow and they had a lot of direct free-kicks that they were putting into good areas and we didn’t deal with that well enough.
“But then at 1-1 to go and get a second pen and win the game was brilliant for the boys.”
On the impact of our substitutes…
“Charles and Khayon did excellent, obviously disappointed that they weren’t starting and then they come on and finish the game really well for us and credit to them two because I thought they did give us another dimension when they came on.
“Charles off the left, Khayon obviously to have that composure to step up and take the penalty in 90 plus, whatever it was, did really, really well.”
On what it means to go through…
“Of course, yeah, everyone, you know, look at the support from the academy staff that are there, you’ve got Albert there watching our game, so from first team to the academy staff to the players, it meant a lot to us.
“That’s what football’s about, we play to win, we play to perform and tonight we’ve done that.”
On looking forward to the next round…
“Definitely, I think as an academy we’ve done brilliant, if you look at our under-15s, the under-16s, our under-18s are doing really well in the league and we’ve all got really good games, competitive games coming up over the next couple of weeks.
“It shows we’ve done well to get to finals and be in positions to win leagues, so based on all of that, there’s a lot of football to be played, and that’s what you want at this end of the season!
“So really happy for the academy and individuals and we need to keep pushing.”
On Nathan Butler-Oyedeji making his Premier League debut…
“It’s been brilliant from Nathan, I think he’s done 11 days in a row, been in the club, without a day off, supporting the first team, being around us so yeah, credit to him and all of the boys have been excellent.
“For him to get on the pitch in a Premier League game is testament to the hard work that he does every single day, so yeah really proud and really pleased for him.”
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