Everton under-21s assistant coach Keith Southern praised the 'character and resilience' of his side and believes they didn’t deserve to be on the end of a drubbing at the hands of Manchester United.
After a 2-0 Premier League International Cup victory against Dinamo Zagreb in the week, the young Blues were beaten 4-1 by a strong United team, which included Tom Huddlestone who came off the bench, on their return to league action at Leigh Sports Village.
Joe Hugill gave United the lead before Omari Forson added a second in the 33rd minute of the game. However, Liam Higgins gave Paul Tait’s side hope when he reduced the arrears seven minutes before the break.
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But Forson scored twice in the closing 15 minutes to secure his side a sixth straight victory in Premier League 2. The defeat leaves the young Blues eighth in the table.
“The score was flattering towards them. Their coach said as much after the game as well. Our second-half performance was excellent,” Southern told evertonfc.com.
“We dominated the game and dominated the big moments with the chances we created. We had two or three glorious opportunities to draw level.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t take them, and when that happens you leave yourselves vulnerable at the other end. They had an outstanding player in Omari Forson, who played wide left, and he scored a hat-trick.”
Before Southern added: “We were really happy in terms of the effort and application shown. They fought their way back into the game.”
It was the third time Tait’s side had played in six days and Southern admits the week has been a difficult one for his side.
He said: “It’s been a difficult week with it being the third game in six days, but we showed great character and resilience.
“I think the only thing missing was the quality in the final third to take one of those terrific chances we had.
“If we had equalised, the staff and I were quite positive that we could’ve gone on and won the game. That’s how dominant and controlling that spell in the second half was.”
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