City’s 2025/26 Premier League 2 campaign came to an end on Friday night following a narrow 4-3 defeat to United in our play-off semi-final clash at the Joie Stadium.
Despite taking an early deserved lead and carving out more opportunities to score which were missed, our young Blues found ourselves 4-1 down before 50 minutes.
Although Wilkinson’s side fought valiantly to turn the game around, City were unable to find a fourth to see our season come to a close.
Reflecting on what was a difficult game that will undoubtedly provide key learning points for his side, Wilkinson showed immense pride in his players and the journey they’ve been on this season.
MATCH REPORT | CITY 3-4 UNITED
“If they learn from it yeah,” said Wilkinson when asked how much a match like United can help his team on their journey to senior football.
“We spoke about it often being one of the criticisms about youth development football about it not being tough enough.
“And I felt in that middle period of the game that’s what we were a little bit.
“So I think that’s something the boys have to try and really think about because I think we’ve done a lot of work on that this season and in the second half of the season we’ve been really good in those moments.
“We’ve really grown up and shown a real maturity in our performances and the way we’ve attacked, the way we’ve defended it’s been a big improvement for me.
“I’ve said this to the boys, you get this in football matches, the ups and downs, the way the game can shift momentum and you have to be able to cope with that.
“And when you have the momentum you have to try and keep it and when you don’t you have to find a way to come out of it without being too burnt. And I think we just struggled to that today.”
Watch Wilkinson’s post-match interview above...
