Mark Atkinson reflected on a “really pleasing season” following Sunderland’s 3-2 win over West Brom on the final day of the U18 Premier League season.
The Black Cats came back from behind early on to take a 2-1 lead into half-time thanks to a Tyrese Dyce own goal and Robbie Dunne’s header.
Sam Greenwood doubled the advantage in the second-half before he was sent off for dissent, but the Baggies could only halve the deficit and the hosts secured three points to finish seventh.
“It’s been a really pleasing season from our point of view,” said Atkinson.
“Since Christmas we’ve had five or six players move to the under-23s which is really what it’s all about, moving players on from the under-18s into the under-23s squad.
“The lads who didn’t really start much in the first half of the season have had their opportunity the second half of the season and they’ve done really well second half of the season, it’s been really pleasing.
He continued: “I’m pleased for the lads to finish off the season with a win as well, it was quite a pleasing performance.
“It was great to see Robbie get his goal because we’ve done a lot of work on that with Robbie getting across the front post and it’s a great delivery from Sam [Greenwood].
“I thought we had 10-minute periods where we did well, then they did better than us for the next 10 minutes so it was a bit up and down in terms of the game but we started the second-half well, we got the third goal and then we’ve held on with the sending off.”
