Watson: "We Made Hard Work Of It"

By Dominic Scurr

Newcastle United under-18 coach Dave Watson felt his side made things hard for themselves during their 3-2 home win over Stoke City on Saturday.

The Magpies led the Barclays Under-18 Premier League fixture 3-0 going into the closing stages, but a couple of late goals from ten-man Stoke saw the visitors almost snatch a point at Little Benton.

And Watson knows United will have to learn to see the game out better after almost throwing away a 3-0 lead away for the second time this season.

"We've come away winning the game but we're still a bit disappointed," Watson told nufc.co.uk.

"To go 3-0 ahead in any game is fantastic, and there were three good goals, but we ended the game quite poorly.

"We were cruising at 3-0 but once they got a goal back we started to panic and we looked really nervous.

"They went down to ten men and we became sloppy and thought we had more time on the ball than we did. Stoke pressed us and started to cause some problems.

"We tended to force passes and our quality in possession needs to be better because we were giving the ball away quite often.

"We need to manage the game better and see out the win in a more controlled manner. We made hard work of it towards the end but I'm still pleased with the overall effort and happy to come away with all three points."