Lewtas on 'excellent' derby display, Van den Berg, Koumetio and more
Barry Lewtas couldn’t fault the effort and performance of his team after Liverpool U23s played out a 1-1 draw with Everton in Premier League 2.
Tyler Morton’s fantastic equaliser cancelled out an early strike from Rhys Hughes in Monday's mini-derby at Southport FC.
The young Reds had chances to win as Fidel O’Rourke saw an effort cleared off the line and Elijah Dixon-Bonner fired inches wide from the edge of the area with the last kick of the game.
At the other end, Brazilian goalkeeper Marcelo Pitaluga also impressed with a couple of outstanding saves.
Read on for Lewtas' reflections on the draw…
On Liverpool's performance…
I thought we were very good and were unfortunate not to win it with the chance for Elijah with the last kick of the game. What was disappointing was conceding the first goal in the first minute, like we did in our last game against Tottenham. After that I can’t argue with the performance. We just couldn’t find that goal to give us the lead but I can’t knock the lads’ intentions to try and find a winner. Overall I thought we were excellent.
On his team not letting their heads drop after conceding…
When you concede so early there’s always a little bit of a worry about how the game is going to look, but to be fair the boys have trained really well and we are in a good place performance-wise so I wasn’t too concerned. We knew Everton would be a tough nut to crack. To be fair we had a lot of the ball and we risked it at times but I thought they defended their penalty area really well. Tyler scored a great goal for us and that was pleasing.
On the displays of Sepp van den Berg and Billy Koumetio at centre-half…
Sepp was fantastic, he really was. He was brilliant in terms of his defending and the way we built from the back and played. We went through Sepp a lot. In fairness to him he has been a real consistent performer for us so we are really pleased with where he is at the moment. He is full of confidence and playing at a really consistent level. I think Sepp’s calmness and maybe where he is at the moment, with his consistency, certainly helped Billy settle into the game. I thought Billy was really good and I was really pleased with some of his moments in the game because Ellis Simms is a really tough No.9 to play against. He’s quick, he scores goals, he’s physical and I thought Sepp and Billy dealt with that threat really well.
On why he believes the wins will soon return for his side…
We hit a bit of a sticky patch against Manchester City and the Blackburn game, we had a few difficulties there. We did lose our way in moments of those games but in our last game against Tottenham and this game against Everton - if we play like that we are going to win more games than we lose. Yes, we want to win games, but we want to play like that as well. We put a tough demand on the boys because we want to win playing our way and impose ourselves on the opposition. The bigger picture is how these boys are developing and there was some really good performances out there tonight. The bigger picture, as always, is can we get boys to the level they need to get to and support the first team? But if we continue to play like that then the next win is only around the corner.