Morecambe manager praises his players after Manchester United U21s victory

The Shrimps concluded their Papa John’s Trophy campaign with victory at the Mazuma Stadium.

They were already unable to qualify for the next phase after losing their previous group stage outings to Rochdale and Salford City.

However, three goals in 10 first-half minutes from Ryan Cooney (2) and Harry Davis put them well in charge at the break, after which Freddie Price netted his first for the club to complete a fine evening’s efforts.

Adams said: “It was important to get minutes into the players that hadn’t played a lot of games of late.

“We got an opportunity to get some goals and we probably should have won by more, six or seven wouldn’t have flattered us.

“We had Ryan Cooney starting it off, scoring two very good goals, then we got a goal from Harry Davis from a corner, then Freddie Price’s first goal for the club.

“Overall it was really good for us, we played against a good Manchester United side that has a lot of talented younger players.”

As Adams admitted, the match afforded him the opportunity to give game time to players who were on the bench for last weekend’s draw with Stevenage.

In all, he made eight changes to the starting line-up with Adam Phillips having the night off altogether.

Those who did figure came up against a United side who, despite failing to fire, showed plenty of promise.

Adams said: “They have beaten Salford 6-0 in this competition and are a talented group.

“We’ll probably see some of these players go on to have very good futures in the game.

“For us, we have Freddie Price starting his first game and he did really well.

“We had Carlos (Mendes) Gomes coming off the bench as two of our younger players.

“We’ve shown if they do well in training and games, they will get their opportunity.”

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