Ali: “Tonight we were ruthless in the final third"

Mehmet Ali was really pleased with the performance as our under-21s beat Manchester United 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Premier League 2 play-offs on Friday night.

Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, Jack-Henry Francis and Amario Cozier-Duberry all got in on the act to send us into the half-time break with a 4-0 lead.

“I felt like our boys were outstanding in the first half today,” Mehmet added. “In previous games we’ve dominated the ball well but we weren’t ruthless. Tonight we were ruthless in the final third. Some of our actions and selflessness to play one extra pass for players to have easy tap-in goals was great, so really pleased. Some of the play, our bravery to take the ball into tight area, pressure and then play was excellent.

“Out of possession, we started a bit slow and gave them quite a lot of respect. We wanted to be more aggressive than what we showed for the first ten minutes but once we found our rhythm and our groove we were really aggressive and that made problems for Man United.

“Overall, a pleasing performance and in the second half it’s easy to get complacent when you’re that many goals up but I don’t think we did that. We kept going, kept trying to score more goals and we started the second half really well. Credit to Man United because at 5-0 they chucked a whole load of players forwards, kept going and got a couple of goals as well.”

Henry-Francis stood out, particularly in the first half, not just for his goal, but for the frequency with which he was making important tackles to win the ball back and prevent chances for United.

“The second goal is probably my favourite goal with the way we worked it all the way from our goalkeeper through,” Mehmet said. “Jack deserved that because he does a lot of work for the team that goes unnoticed, some of his challenges and unselfish runs, and for him to score, the boys are giving him a little bit of stick in there because he doesn’t normally score but I’m really pleased that he got a goal.”

Butler-Oyedeji and Cozier-Dubbery are two players who are used to finding the back of the net and they both registered another brace each on Friday.

“Amario is in a really good rhythm and flow at the moment with plenty of goals and Nath again is someone that does so much work for the team and he got his rewards tonight with composed finishing,” Mehmet said. “Our front half players are problems for any backline to deal with and tonight they showed that.”