City suffered a 3-2 defeat to West Ham at the Little Heath Sports Ground in their second Cup game of the season.
Gareth Taylor‘s side did well to respond to Amadou Diallo’s brace, with Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Jayden Braaf writing their names on City’s scoresheet in the second half, but a late winner from the Hammers’ Sebastian Nebyla ensured the three points were secured by the London outfit.
What happened
We opened our Premier League Cup campaign in impressive fashion back in September, recording a fine 3-0 win over Leicester in the opening group game.
The emphatic victory saw us enter the game against West Ham second in our group, behind Blackburn Rovers on goal difference.
The game started out a little scrappy between the two academy sides, with only a couple of half-chances falling to Lewis Fiorini – who scored two in our last Premier League Cup encounter – and Henri Ogunby for City.
The Blues struggled to find the target in the opening half, and it was the Hammers who opened the scoring through Amadou Diallo just after the half hour mark.
Returning from the break, the Blues were off to a flying start, as Fisayo Dele-Bashiru netted his first cup goal of the 2018/19 campaign just a minute into play to take it level.
But the Blues were unable to enjoy the scoreline for long as the Hammers responded almost immediately with a fine rocket of a strike, which marked Diallo’s second of the game.
Gareth Taylor’s young side fought tirelessly to find yet another equaliser.
Young striker Jayden Braaf broke through the Hammers’ defence to get our second of the game to reinstall hope of salvaging an all-important point for our group tally.
That was, however, soon knocked down by the home side.
West Ham netted their third and the final goal of the game through Nebyla to see them collect their first points in the competition.
What it means
City will need to win their next Under-18 Premier League Cup game against Blackburn to qualify for the knockout rounds.
Up next
The Under-18s now enter the international break, and will return for the U18 Manchester derby on 24 November.
