And for Barry Lewtas, seeing Liverpool U23s respond to his pre-match call to be more clinical in front of goal made it an almost-perfect night on Friday.
Jack Bearne (two), Leighton Clarkson, Ben Woodburn and Luis Longstaff were all on target in a 5-3 win over Manchester United in Premier League 2.
It was the perfect response to the preceding 6-1 loss against Wigan Athletic in the EFL Trophy and ideal pick-me-up for their second outing in the competition.
Lewtas’ U21 group face Tranmere Rovers in a behind-closed-doors fixture at Prenton Park tonight, with kick-off set for 7pm BST.
Read our pre-match interview with the boss below…
On Friday night’s win over United…
We discussed this importance of starting well, which I think we’ve done in every game so far. After the setback against Wigan it was important to get ourselves right back into the groove really and impose ourselves on the game, and I think we were able to do that. I think the difference between this game and some of the others has just been our finishing. With all due respect to the teams we have played this year I think our first-half performances have been really good. We didn’t finish teams off but against Manchester United we had that ruthless streak. The performance, and finishing off our chances, is the benchmark for what we want from the lads and what we are all about. We are not going to score four goals every half unfortunately but when you are on top of teams you’ve got to have it shown on that scoreboard.
Watch: Man Utd 3-5 U23s - highlights
On the potent threat of Liam Millar down the left flank…
Liam was so unfortunate not to score on the night and that was the only thing missing from his game. I was disappointed for him really because he has been working really hard in training. I thought he was a brilliant outlet for us and one-v-one he was excellent. If Liam keeps working the way he is in training and keeps performing at that level, I’m sure a goal will come soon for him.
On the first-class high pressing from his side…
It was. We knew we were playing against a good team with strong principles themselves so we knew we would have an opportunity to put one of our strengths up against them really. I thought the organisation was really good, which was important, and the mentality to press and the way we did it I thought we were pretty relentless really. When we had them under the rack what was important was we kept them there, and that was the real plus point really.
On his players responding to his pre-match chat to be more clinical…
I think it’s important the front players understand that their job is to contribute, whether that is creating or scoring. It’s the same with Liam, it’s not been through a lack of work or a lack of effort, we’ve just probably not been clinical previously as a team. Sometimes that can happen and then you know one day it will click and against United we got five in the first 50 minutes so that was one of them days.
On Longstaff netting his first goal of the season to match his excellent work ethic…
Luis has been playing as the No.9 for us in the absence of Paul Glatzel and Joe Hardy, and has done extremely well for us. Luis has led the press ever so well and I have also been pleased with how he has responded in how we want to build and create. His movement has been really good and there’s a lot of selfless work he puts in for the team to create chances for others. His all-round game has been a real plus. Attacking players are often judged on chances they create and goals they score, so for Luis that was an important goal for him and it was well deserved.
On Tuesday night’s trip to Tranmere Rovers…
We are really respectful of this competition and we appreciate the teams that we are playing against are ones that are littered with experience. We are well aware of that but what’s important for us is we are not just going there for the experience. We want to try to impose ourselves and the way we want to play on the game. I do think we were able to do that against Wigan for the first 45 minutes, when I thought we were excellent. That’s probably been forgotten because of the 6-1 result and we understand it was a heavy defeat, but the first half was excellent. We’ve just got to try to manage certain parts of the game against more experienced players. In terms of the group it was points lost against Wigan and a heavy defeat but I think we showed we bounced back against Manchester United and showed how resilient we are. The really important thing about these games is to show how we have learned from the Wigan game, so there was certain parts in the second half that wasn’t quite good enough, but hopefully we’ve been able to solve some of those problems. Wigan could end up being a fantastic learning curve for us, which is why we entered the competition, so we go to Tranmere with confidence and excitement. We are really respectful of Tranmere Rovers and hopefully we can showcase what we are able to do.
Due to EFL competition rules we are unable to show this match on LFCTV, but extended highlights will be made available to watch on LFCTV and LFCTV GO on Wednesday afternoon.