Leigh Sports Village will play host to our third Manchester derby of the season, with kick-off scheduled for 19:30 (UK) on Tuesday 23 April, with the game also live on CITY+.
City’s recent 4-1 league win at Nottingham Forest has got the team back to winning ways following a defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers. And our most recent cup experience came in a 1-0 win over Bristol City in the FA Youth Cup semi-final.
BUY TICKETS | UNDER-18 PREMIER LEAGUE CUP FINAL
Since those games earlier this month, Wilkinson and the team have had more time to prepare ahead of the cup final and take away key learnings from each of them.
“It’s been nice to have a little bit more of a settled group this week with less midweek games and that’s given us a little bit more time to prepare on the grass which is exciting,” said Wilkinson.
“It’s a really good Under-18s fixture, playing in a final against United. It’s a top fixture so we’re really looking forward to the game and I’m hoping the lads can go and show the best versions of themselves in terms of their performance.
“Bristol had a really unique style that having watched them, I was impressed with. It was a stop-start game in the first half but I thought after half-time we had a lot more control of the ball and we were able to sustain attacks and tactically we were better in terms of positions we were holding on the pitch, the game looked more like what we would have wanted to,” Wilkinson explained.
“I think towards the end of the game I was confident that we would win because we were doing the right things repeatedly and I felt that if we kept doing that, normally, you go on and win the game.
“But United will be a different game, a different proposition. We’ve played them twice and I think they have quite a settled playing style which, from my point of view, allows us to be a bit more consistent in terms of preparing for the game.
“Last time we played them we prepared the game really well in terms of what we needed to do to change the game from when we lost 1-0 and we did that and it will be the case of looking at this game in the same light.”
Tuesday’s clash will be undoubtedly be an end-to-end affair if our previous encounters are anything to go by.
Our first clash with the young Red Devils saw them hold out for a narrow 1-0 win at Carrington, in what was just our second league defeat of the campaign.
But, when we welcomed United to the City Football Academy in March, it was evident from kick-off that Wilkinson’s youngsters would not fall to a second defeat at the hands of United.
A Farid Alfa-Ruprecht brace, together with an Ashton Muir strike and Jaydan Kamason own goal topped off a dominant display with Ethan Williams’ reply the only positive for the visitors.
But with the end of the season almost upon us, Wilkinson reflected positively on the development of his players over the past eight months and the head coach is confident his players will showcase their maturity in the final.
“It’s been the first year where the growth of the players has looked slightly different because we’ve had so many injuries and therefore we’ve not really had a settled team in the second half of the season,” the head coach added.
“What I think the team has done really well since Christmas is to be involved in so many competitions. Trying to still win the league, two finals and lost in the semi-finals of the Under-17 Premier League Cup to Chelsea. With that the players have had to go every three or four days and they’ve probably had to, at times, find ways to win games.
“I think we’ve seen in the Spurs and Bristol FA Youth Cup games we’ve not quite been at our best in the competition but the players have still done enough to get over the line and like I say we’ve had a lot of injuries and we’ve also been pushing players out there.
“So I think it’s been a real good education for them on what the real world looks like in terms of having to play so many games every three or four days.
“So I think we’ve done well this year to sort of stay in the race almost on all fronts because it’s not been as smooth as the last couple of years in terms of the continuity of the group which I think we have found hard at times.
“Hopefully you’ll still get to see at the end of it a team that looks like what we want a Manchester City team to look like. But from a resilience point of view and finding different ways to win, I think the boys have done well.”
