Paul Bryson praised his players’ discipline and work ethic following their 1-1 draw against Manchester City at the Academy of Light.
Keyendrah Simmonds tapped home from close range to put City in front just after the hour mark, but Connor Slack’s late penalty ensured Sunderland shared the spoils with the highest scoring side in the U18 Premier League.
Bryson was full of superlatives for his side after a hard-fought point, saying: “It was a really pleasing performance and a great point against arguably the best under-18s side in the country.
“We had a game plan and we stuck to it, the lads were so disciplined in that performance and we deserved a draw because of that.
“We worked on a little bit of an outlet which we thought we could expose, which we did quite well in the first half, second half we didn’t really expose it a lot, but we found a different way to get in behind them.”
With the first home points of the season under their belt, the under-18s travel to Middlesbrough for the Tees-Wear derby next weekend – and Bryson says his side will take confidence from their recent form.
“They’re all difficult games and we’ll apply ourselves in the same way, but we’ve certainly built a platform to build on from the last couple of weeks,” he continued.
“We drew at Wolves and beat West Brom away from home, so you try to keep little records like that intact, but if we can build on today’s performance then we can look forward to Middlesbrough with stacks of confidence.”
