Watson: "We Were Second Best"

By Dominic Scurr

Newcastle United Under-18s coach Dave Watson felt his side were "clearly second best" following their 4-0 home defeat to Derby County on Saturday.

The Magpies have been experiencing a disappointing run of from of late and Watson admitted his team failed to show what they were capable of when the Rams came to Little Benton.

"It was a very disappointing result and performance," he told nufc.co.uk.

"We were clearly second best for the majority of the game. We lacked physicality and they were stronger than us all over the pitch.

"This is a group of lads who haven't played an awful lot of football so it was a good chance for them to show us what they can do but they failed to come away with any real credit after that."

Less than a month ago United secured a 2-2 away draw at Derby, yet Watson was unsurprised with the way events unfolded on Tyneside 

"I wasn't really surprised with the result," he continued.

"We have a lot of players who haven't played a lot of football so we were anticipating a difficult game for them.

"What did surprise me was the lack of fight and desire from some of our players because we just rolled over.

"We need to get these players to go over the video of the game and look at all the areas where they went wrong and how they can improve.

"It's not nice to be getting beat every week but hopefully this will help give the players that motivation they need to improve and develop so they can come back stronger for next time."