Mark Robson believes West Ham United U21s’ 5-1 defeat to Manchester City simply came down to the quality possessed by Friday’s opponents.
In City, the young Hammers faced a side that sit top of Premier League 2 Division 1 on Friday evening, with the visitors to Rush Green Stadium taking a first-half lead thanks to Kian Breckin’s clever finish.
The midfielder would grab another in the second half, while Oscar Bobb, Alex Robertson and an unfortunate Freddie Potts own-goal would put City in the ascendancy.
Divin Mubama scored a late header in consolation for a West Ham side that also saw chances from the likes of Keenan Appiah-Forson, Kamarai Swyer, Maxwel Cornet and substitute Gideon Kodua go begging.
While Robson could not find much to fault in his team’s efforts, the U21s lead coach admitted the Irons could not afford to pass up such chances against a team of City’s quality…
Overall, I actually thought we played alright.
The overall difference was that Manchester City was absolutely clinical. Let’s be completely fair too. They’re a top team who are top of the league for a reason. They’re the best team in the league for sure and they have some really good players. It was a really good challenge for us.
Their goal in the first half came from us giving the ball away.
We were on the counter-attack and we made the wrong decision. We give the ball away and City get down the other end and score. It’s disappointing because we could have gone in 0-0, or even ahead if we make the right decision up the other end of the pitch.
The second half, I had no qualms with being two goals down.
They scored a good goal, but then I felt we had a legitimate penalty turned down. It was a disappointing decision. But at 2-0 we’re perhaps still in the game but City obviously go on to score more and win 5-1. But we had chances and I didn’t think we played particularly bad. It just came down to City’s quality shining through.
When you look at a team like City, they’ve got some really clever players.
They have power, pace, and a lot of guile. They’re a really talented group and they’re probably the best team in Europe at the moment. That’s the level we’re up against here but I think we did some things really well. We ended the game strongly and Divin got a goal, and Gideon Kodua had a chance at the end as well.
It was always going to be a tough game for us.
Getting three points against Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday but there are no qualms from me on this one. Manchester City are a top team and, although the score-line perhaps flatters them a little bit, they played very well.
We’ve been on a fantastic run.
The boys have been absolutely brilliant. Every day in training, they’ve shown a terrific work ethic and a desire to get better. We said to them after this game that we’re pleased with them and we now need to take that fight into the next game.
We know every game is going to be tough. This one was just exceptionally tough, against a top team.
