Man Utd youngster Shea Lacey scored in the U21s’ 3-2 win against Sunderland in the Premier League 2 playoff on Sunday.
Manchester United coach Adam Lawrence heaped praise on youngster Shea Lacey after his goal against Sunderland on Sunday. United’s Under-21s won 3-2 against Sunderland to seal their place in the Premier League 2 play-off quarter-finals.
Lacey scored United’s third goal of the game at Leigh Sports Village and had a hand in Jack Fletcher’s strike. The 19-year-old is now seen as a first-team player, but still drops down to U21 level for minutes.
Ruben Amorim handed Lacey his senior debut against Aston Villa in December, and the academy prospect was given two appearances from the bench by Darren Fletcher during his caretaker stint.
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U21 interim boss Lawrence spoke to the Manchester Evening News about Lacey’s display against Sunderland, saying: “I thought overall it was a really good performance. I think if you’re looking at Shea in this recent period, I think he’s playing with a lot of maturity.
“And you can see that training with the first-team players and being around their programme consistently is definitely helping him in a lot of areas of his game. His all-round performances today in terms of the consistency of his levels.
“There are always going to be a couple of bits around his decision-making and maybe being reliable in certain situations, but on the whole, I thought it was a really, really good performance. He got his goal, and he looked like a real threat at the top end of the pitch.”
Lacey has physically matured and has overcome a challenging period marked by minor injuries. “Credit to all the staff who work behind the scenes in terms of managing him, all the sports science and medical staff, just in terms of where he’s gotten himself to, and then naturally, he’s a young man and maturing all the time as well,” added Lawrence.
“Sometimes we forget he is a young man and he’s going through those years of growth. But in terms of that maturity, it’s something we’ve definitely seen an improvement with on and off the pitch, so hopefully he will continue to build on that and take confidence from it.”
Lawrence was pleased with his side’s display against Sunderland, but said there were lessons to be learned after the Mackems came back into the contest when United had a two-goal lead.
“Sunderland are a good side, and I thought they played some good stuff, but I think the biggest lesson in terms of the team stuff is when we’ve got those two goal leads, so we’ve gone 2-1 and we’ve gone 3-1 today, and we had that similar one with the Real Madrid game we were 2-0 up,” he said.
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“You then give the opposition moments and in terms of the decision-making and the quality of the moments, then you give the opposition an opportunity, they take it and then you turn the game edgy.
“So, in all honesty, in the last part of the game, they could have scored, and it could have gone to extra time. We’ve managed to see the game out and obviously get the win.
“But the biggest lessons, if we want to get to the right nitty-gritty of this, would be to eradicate those mistakes and make sure that when we’ve got that two-goal lead, or a healthy lead, that we make sure that we continue with that dominance and see the game out properly.”
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