CONNELLY DOUBLE’S NOT ENOUGH FOR U18S
CUP PROGRESS SEALED BY SUNDERLAND DESPITE LATE, LATE DEFEAT AWAY TO LIVERPOOL
Forthesecondweekrunning, Sunderland suffered a late defeat away to Liverpool, this time in the Under-18 Premier League Cup,
Lee Connelly grabbed a brace for the Wearsiders, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent a narrow 3-2 Liverpool win at Melwood on Saturday.
Despite the defeat to the section winners, Sunderland progress to the quarterfinals as one of the two best runners-up in the group stage.
The Wearsiders played really well in the first half and led at the interval through Connelly’s first goal, scored in the 25th minute.
It came from an incisive ball played down the side of the defence which found Connelly, who turned a defender and rifled a strike past the keeper from 12 yards.
Sunderland were the better side for the rest of the half, but the Merseysiders levelled shortly after the break when a short corner was taken quickly and halftime sub Adam Lewis scored from the edge of the box.
Seven minutes later, they took the lead from a poor goal from Sunderland’s point of view.
Sunderland keeper Anthony Patterson rolled the ball out, attempting to find Sonny Best, but the pass was intercepted and turned across goal for Rafael Camacho to score with a tapin. The visitors hit back to equalise in the 79th minute.
Connelly was through but was pulled back by his shirt and made no mistake from the resulting penalty.
It looked like a deserved draw until three minutes from time when keeper Patterson brought down an attacker and Lewis banged home from the spot to seal Liverpool’s third win out of three in the group.
Sunderland coach Mark Atkinson commented: “The first half was very good, but we made several poor individual decisions in the second half and consequently were unable to manage the game.”
Liverpool coach Steven Gerrard told Liverpoolfc. com: “In the first half, we didn’t turn up really, but I sort of challenged them at half-time and told them they weren’t good enough and we needed more from them.
“They delivered in the second half. Adam coming on from the bench changed the game for us and also Niall Brookwell on his U18s debut came on for the last 35 minutes and was excellent.
“Overall, a good result and a good performance in the second half, but we weren’t at the races in the first.”