Watson: "We Were Fantastic"

By Dominic Scurr

Newcastle United Under-18s coach Dave Watson was delighted at his side's performance following an impressive 3-2 victory at home to Manchester United on Saturday.

The Magpies outclassed a highly-rated Manchester United outfit for large portions of the Barclays Under-18 Premier League fixture at Little Benton to earn their first win of the season.

The deadly combination of Callum Smith and Lewis McNall was too much for the visitors, with Smith finding McNall on three occasions as the latter bagged a hat-trick of headers.

"It's great to see our striker (McNall) score a hat-trick with his head and it shows just how good our delivery and distribution was today," Watson told nufc.co.uk.

"Overall, I thought we were fantastic. For 85 or so minutes we pressed really well and stopped Manchester United from playing by not giving them any time on the ball.

"We know teams like Manchester United can hurt you if you give them time and space so the fact that we stopped that just goes to show how well we did.

"We showed real quality on the ball and our energy levels were excellent for the majority of the game.

"We've got a very young side but Dan Ward and Jack Hunter coming back from the under-21 squad gave us a big boost as they were excellent in the middle and their experience rubbed off on the rest of the team."

Manchester United who grabbed two goals in the dying moments of the game but it was too little, too late.

Watson continued: "The final few minutes were disappointing from a coach's perspective.

"To concede two late goals does put a slight dampener on things but when you put in the amount of energy we did today, you expect us to fade slightly toward the end.

"Perhaps we should have killed the game off better than we did but to beat Manchester United at any level is a great achievement.

"It's been a good learning curve for the lads and hopefully they can push on from here."