Match Report: Sunderland U21 2-3 Manchester City U21
Yesterday at 06:46 AM
Sunderland under-21s fell to a narrow defeat against league leaders Manchester City in a five goal thriller on Saturday lunchtime.
Trey Samuel-Ogunsuyi opened the scoring inside 10 minutes putting the black cats 1-0 up before Josh Wilson-Esbrand equalised the game in the 38th minute meaning the score was level going into half time.
Sunderland regained the lead in the 52nd minute through Harrison Jones however late goals from Michael Okeke and Emilio Lawrence in the 72nd and 82nd minute saw the visitors leave with the three points.
There was a late change to the starting lineup for Sunderland as Jewison Bennette who was set to start fell ill during the warmup meaning 19-year old Tymur Tutierov was called into the starting lineup to face City.
Sunderland started the game positively and were rewarded with a goal inside the opening ten minutes Ogunsuyi slotted the ball home after latching onto a wonderful pass over the top of the city defence by Joe Anderson.
The Black Cats looked to be cruising into half-time with a 1-0 lead with City only creating half chances but it was Wilson-Esbrand who fired home a sensational equaliser to bring the game level.
It took Sunderland seven minutes after the restart to regain the lead as Jones slotted home a neat finish at the near post after a well worked passage of play to grab his fourth goal in all competitions this season.
However it wasn’t to be for the Black cats as City grew stronger late into the game and an inch perfect back heel goal from Okeke levelled the score. Ten minutes later Lawrence’s trickery down the left wing created enough space for him to be able to smash home taking the game away from Sunderland.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game coming into it, Man City have a great academy": Sunderland captain Jones told Sportsbyte. "We still thought we could go out there and win and I think we had the chances to do that but we lacked a clinical edge in both boxes.”
“I'm happy to get another goal I’ve worked on getting into better areas to improve my stats and to be able to score more”.
“We have another cup game on Wednesday against a different opponent, we need to come up with a gameplan and hopefully get back on a winning streak.”
Sunderland travel to Gateshead in the National League Cup on Wednesday as they look to get back on track after two defeats in a row.
