Manchester United’s U18 side hosted Stoke City U18s at Carrington on Friday night.
A rare evening match for Adam Lawrence’s side, after the game was pushed forward from Saturday morning due to the U21s being in quarter-finals action against West Ham on Monday.
There was action straight from the off as Ryan Lui ran through inside the opening minute after a poor giveaway but Cameron Byrne-Hughes stood tall to make the save.
Up the other end, Victor Musa was played through for a big chance of his own just seconds later but couldn’t find the gap between the keeper’s legs with his low-placed shot.
Musa didn’t make the same mistake in the 15th minute though as he handed United a 1-0 lead.
James Overy made the move by driving inside which drew out the Stoke centre back to create space for Overy to slip Musa into the box, who slotted low past the keeper.
In just his third start of the season, Shea Lacey impressed as he had his marker on strings, going inside and out but the sheer number of Stoke defenders in the box meant Lacey couldn’t get his shot through the crowd and the score remained 1-0 going into the break.
Samuel Lusale replaced Lacey at the restart as Lacey continues his recovery from a series of injuries which left him sidelined throughout the season.
Ten minutes into the second half, Dante Plunkett stole in after a poor touch from the Stoke keeper and went down after a bit of innocuous contact to earn United a dubious penalty.
Musa stepped up and confidently slotted his second goal into the bottom left corner to make it 2-0.
It was really all one-way traffic throughout the match and United should have made it 3-0 when Thwaites chipped right through the middle for a free Amir Ibragimov, whose header was straight down the throat of the keeper. From the subsequent rebound, Musa lashed wide.
The final 20 minutes saw the introduction of JJ Gabriel and the long-awaited return of Jayce Fitzgerald from injury. The talented midfielder had featured on the first team bench earlier in the season.
In the 77th minute, Stoke almost snuck their way back into the match against the run of play when a wayward cross almost caught out Byrne-Hughes as it smacked off the crossbar.
Fitzgerald almost had the perfect comeback when Musa’s shot led to the rebound falling for Fitzgerald to run onto but the Stoke keeper recovered well to deny the United midfielder.
But it was 14-year-old JJ Gabriel who stole the show when he picked up the ball from a short corner, drove inside and curled the ball off the crossbar with such venom that it crashed off a Stoke defender and into the net to make it 3-0.
Gabriel then added another as he moved down the left wing before shimmying past his marker to cut inside and pass the ball into the bottom right corner to seal a 4-0 victory.
United will finish off their season with a final home match against Sunderland next week with a second-place finish already secured in the league.
United: Byrne-Hughes, Overy, Mills (Ngwashi 64), Munro (Armer 64), Plunkett, Baumann, Ibragimov (Fitzgerald 72), Lacey (Lusale 46), Bailey, Thwaites (Gabriel 72), Musa
Feature image George Wood via Getty Images
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Colm Murphy
A football obsessed Canadian who moved to England to enjoy the beautiful game. Colm has been keen follower of Manchester United’s famed academy since seeing a fresh faced Adnan Januzaj for the club’s u18s and has been writing about football with a focus on youth development for over 10 years.
