A first-half goal fest saw City’s youngsters put five past the Potters before half-time, securing a result that saw us go joint top of the Under-18 Premier League North table with Blackburn Rovers, who City will face next week.
It was also the perfect response to last week’s frustrating FA Youth Cup exit at the hands of Brighton - and Wilkinson has urged his squad to now seek to maintain that focus and consistency.
“We were really pleased given the defeat at Brighton the other day,” Wilkinson declared.
“The mentality of the players was good and I thought some of our play was fantastic. We played really well, really incisive, moved the ball at a really good speed and got in behind the opposition.
“We’ve been a little bit disappointed at times in the league programme, I feel we have lacked a little bit of consistency with one or two results but overall the performance level has been good.
“We have got a really young group and we have put ourselves into a position to go and compete for titles.
“It is all about the run-in and being really consistent, if we can nail the performances like we did on Saturday then we can put ourselves in a really good position.”
Forward Adedire Mebude was particularly influential against the Potters, grabbing two of City’s goals and also helping to set up the other three during a dramatic first-half.
Head coach Wilkinson was delighted by the performance of his forward, and has called for Mebude to keep up those standards as we enter the latter stages of the season.
The Under-18s boss added: “I thought Adedire was excellent.
“He has had a good season but we challenged him to be a little bit more consistent in terms of the last pass, the quality of his crossing, position in the box, all of those areas we wanted to be a little bit more consistent.
“It was a really pleasing performance from him, in the first half he caused them so many problems so he just needs to maintain that level now.”
