Liverpool U18 manager Mark Bridge-Wilkinson believes his young side can take positives from their overall performance despite losing 5-3 to Fulham in the Premier League Cup last weekend.
Trey Nioni, 16, scored a superb solo goal and also provided an assist as Jayden Dunns continued his streak of scoring in every league game at U18 level this season. The Young Reds were 2-1 up against Fulham at one point, but a strong second-half performance from the away side secured victory.
Striker Bridge-Wilkinson returns to action this Saturday and will be hoping to return to winning ways when they take on Newcastle United at the Academy.
Kick-off kicks off at 1pm in Kirkby and subscribers can watch the match live on LFCTV and LFCTV GO.Bridge-Wilkinson tells Liverpoolfc.com about the Fulham defeat, Nyoni’s progress, Keyrol Figueroa’s U17 World Cup call-up and more.
Read on as we speak… Last Saturday they lost 5-3 to Fulham…I think we started a little bit rough and then settled into the game. We played really well in the first half and we were 2-1 up, so I was really happy with our style of play and the way we played.
It was difficult for us in the second half because it was the other way around. It wasn’t as bad as the last minute loss, but I don’t think it was as good as the first half. Confidence is important for young players, and so is trust. Sometimes, if it makes sense, you have to find a way to cope because it’s part of the learning process.
It was a good learning day and although we didn’t like to lose the game, we took a lot of good things out of it.Nyoni’s great goal…It was a really fantastic goal. It was a great own goal and I thought Trey was amazing in the first hour of the game. He is a very talented young player, he still has a lot to learn, but he has given us a good start.
We will continue to work hard to improve this further and as we have seen with our outstanding attack so far, we have certainly achieved our goal and hopefully it can continue.
As for Figueroa’s invitation to the US National Team U17 World Cup…Figgy travels to the United States on Friday to be a member of Team USA for the U17 World Cup. So we’re going to spend some time with him. We will have to wait and see if anyone else in the squad gets a call-up to the England squad. It will be a great experience for Figgy.
I told him I was an England fan but if he played I would support America and I hoped he would do well and score a goal.In fact, he started the season injured, but will return to form in time.
He’s still not as sharp as he’d like, but hopefully he’ll get some time with the US U17 team so he can score some goals and come back sharper for us.Saturday’s home game against Newcastle…It will be a tough challenge.
Things have changed there in recent years so we don’t know what to expect, but they will attack us and it will be a good test because they have good players and a good staff.
We always perform well against Newcastle United but it’s never an easy game so we’re looking forward to it as always.
