THE Burton Albion under 18s were beaten 1-0 by Hartlepool United in the Youth Alliance in a game of few chances at St George’s Park.
The young Brewers were beaten by a first-half goal when a through ball allowed the Hartlepool forward to run in on-goal and slot the ball into the far corner.
Professional Development Phase Lead Coach Sam Rose said that this certainly wasn’t the best performance of the season, but believes Hartlepool deserve credit for a hardworking performance.
He said: “I don’t think that we played particularly well but, as always, the lads worked hard. They want to win and they want to play well but today was just one of those games where it didn’t come together.
“We changed a few things at half-time and early in the second-half to try to create something but to no avail. Hartlepool have played well and made it difficult for us, credit to them.”
Jack Bromfield, captain for the game, said: “We grafted, as well always do. We put in the effort and tried to do the things that we have worked on in training. We tried to get the ball to the wide players and the number 10, but it was just one of those days.
“We had a couple of chances from set-pieces, but it was just never going to go in for us today.”
Jacob Saville said: “I think that the first-half was poor, the second-half was better, but we needed to take the chances that we had, we hit the post. It was a poor day overall.
“They were more solid than I was expecting them to be, I thought that we would cause them more problems on set-pieces than we did. We didn’t find those passes in-behind, and when we did, the runner didn’t continue his run.”