VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: Cole Hat trick gets U18s back to winning ways

Having lost 3 league games on the trot, a massively understrength u18s side decimate Man C*ty’s ‘Baby Bitters’ at Carrington on Saturday morning.

Without Morrison, Pogba, Tunnicliffe, Keane and Cofie they set about rectifying their past defeats with Van Velzen going close early but once Sean McGinty’s cross-cum-shot evaded Van Velzen and found the back of the net the flood gates opened.

Lingard got our second when Van Velzen’s header came off the cross bar and fell to him. His initial shot was saved but he made no mistake at second time of asking.

The diminutive Larnell Cole got his first just before the break when his deflected shot found the back of the net. City thought they had escaped danger having cleared a United corner but Cole was on hand to fire the ball back into the box and after taking a wicked deflection it found it’s way into the back of the net.

It was more of the same after the break and Cole got his second with a class run evading the challenges of two City players before bending the ball past City’s keeper. His performance with Ekangamene in the middle of the park was definitely appearing fruitful in the absence of Pogba and Tunnicliffe and whilst usually playing out wide it seems that Cole is equally adept at going through the middle too.

United made it 5 after playing the ball up from the back with a sweet sequence of passes. City intercepted the ball but their player was in turn robbed by McGinty and United passed the ball from left to right before Lawrence made it 5. City were to get a consolation goal through Robinson but United put the seal on the game when Cole completed his hat trick with a sweet chip following a perfectly weighted through ball by Michael Keane.

The game finished 6-1 and it was good to see United back to winning ways. After last week’s performance against Crewe where we had a number of chances but managed to end up on the wrong end of a 5-1 score line it was good to see us finishing more of our chances even without Keane and Cofie.

2 weeks, 2 wins over the Bitters, doesn’t get any better than that!