AcademyU18s reaction: 'We challenged the players and they deserved the win'
Simon Wiles spoke of pride at the way his Liverpool U18s side executed their game plan perfectly in Saturday's 3-2 win away at previously undefeated Manchester City.
Josh Sonni-Lambie and Josh Abe had twice given the young Reds a lead in the U18 Premier League North clash, only to see the home team quickly equalise each time.
However, the visitors produced a late decider as Sonni-Lambie notched his second of the game with a dinked finish beyond the goalkeeper near the end.
Post-match, Wiles spoke to Liverpoolfc.com about the result, the form of Sonni-Lambie - who tallied his seventh and eighth goals of the season - and more...
On an excellent victory for his team…
You know what type of game you are going to get when you come away to Manchester City. I thought overall with the discipline that the players showed, we know we want to be on the front foot and we know we want to be aggressive. It was a different challenge for the players and we challenged them throughout the week of what it might be like at times. I thought the lads executed everything we spoke about really well and I thought we deserved the victory.
On the desire of the Liverpool players to go and get the winner after City had twice levelled…
I think the frustrating part was every time we took the lead, within two or three minutes we found ourselves back on level terms again. That is something we will have a look at, but again it's great for the learning. But I thought ultimately when we did win the ball back in transition, we wanted to threaten their back line and we had Josh [Abe] and La'more [Lee Forrester] out wide who we knew were threatening, so it was just making sure we found them with the right ball so they could show their talent.
On U16 winger Abe netting his first goal at U18 level…
I think this type of game will give Josh a real experience of what the game can be like at times, as it can't always be that he gets the ball all of the time every moment. There was a lot of discipline around his performance I thought and I think this experience will help him going forwards in seeing a different side of the game.
On Sonni-Lambie's hot streak in front of goal…
We know Josh has that in his locker and we are trying to find him in those moments where he can score. He might have had another one as well when he just got stuck under his feet. He's always a threat and he wants to try to win the ball higher up the pitch, so there's a lot of challenges for the players mentally in terms of holding the shape, holding their position and recognising when they can go and apply pressure.
Josh made his first start for the U21s in the Vertu Trophy and we spoke in the dressing room after the game, and we just said that the things that we speak about daily, trying to improve you in certain areas, that's the reason why. He was up against a professional outfit with senior players and I knew what type of game it was going to be for him. He hasn't come up against that so far in his development, so for him to experience that was great for him.
On Wednesday's trip to Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Youth League on the back of an excellent win at Galatasaray…
We are really looking forward to it, it's great to work with Rob [Page] in these games. These fixtures are brilliant because I think they challenge us a little bit more tactically. For me personally, I always think of looking at games as what we do, but when you go into Europe it's a tactical insight to see how other teams do it in other countries.