City’s Elite Development Squad fell to our fifth defeat of the 2023/24 campaign after goals from Franco Umeh, Roshaun Mathurin and Danny Imray secured the win for the visitors.
The manager praised a tough Palace side but thought it important to highlight his team are beginning to take training ground learnings into their matchdays.
And Barry-Murphy is confident it will begin to reflect with more winning outcomes.
“I think each club has their own qualities and I think the beauty of playing Crystal Palace is they have players who are very dominant in one-on-one situations,” said Barry-Murphy.
“So it’s very good for our players who are not as powerful and not as old to have to deal with that physical challenge and see how we dealt with it.
“And I think for large parts we dealt with it really well. Overall I think my message to the players is I am very pleased with a lot of things in the performance but I wouldn’t mistake that with being someone who is happy with the result.
“We all want to win and desperate to win in this competition and progress up the league into a place that allows to compete at the end of the season and we are clear on that objective but today we saw a lot of benefits from the game.”
The frustrating performance follows a hard fought 2-1 comeback win over RB Leipzig courtesy of goals from Kane Taylor and Josh Adam.
It will be back to UEFA Youth League action for Barry-Murphy’s side who will be looking to return to winning ways in the trip to Red Star Belgrade.
And the boss is excited to spend a bit more time with his team on the CFA pitches following the conclusion of international breaks.
“We’ve finally got the chance to work really intensely with the players on the training ground with a lot of the stuff that we’ve been seeing in games and I think that training programme is very important,” explained Barry-Murphy.
“We have to push these players who are becoming young men and physically they’re able to improve and do a lot more training.
“It gives us a very exciting time to see if we can improve these young players rapidly and then put it back into practice in the league campaign when we come back after Belgrade.”
