Darren Fletcher spoke after Man Utd’s U18s were defeated by Man City in the FA Youth Cup final.
Fletcher spoke after the FA Youth Cup final.(Image: 2026 The FA)
Darren Fletcher said he was proud of his Manchester United Under-18 said but was disappointed that his side did not perform at their best in the FA Youth Cup final against Manchester City.
City won 2-1 at the Joie Stadium to claim the Youth Cup on Thursday. City forward Floyd Samba opened the scoring in the first half with an impressive free-kick, but Godwill Kukonki brought United level minutes later.
United’s youngsters struggled to create chances when play resumed for the second half, and City’s pressure finally told in the 87th minute when Reigan Heskey fired into the roof of the net to win the game.
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U18 boss Fletcher said after the game: “Disappointing for the players, they’re the ones that are sitting in there having lost the game, really, in terms of the efforts that they’ve put in all season. We sit here having lost two finals and finished second in the league.
“And we’ve had lots of amazing performances, lots of improvement individually and as a team. We’ve come up a little bit short tonight. I think my disappointment is for them, because I feel for them, it’s not easy.
“But you learn more from defeat and it’s a big part of being a footballer, so we’ve got to use that to drive themselves forward, to become better players and become a better team in the future.
“We are talking about development here, at the end of the day. Disappointing for me, we didn’t quite bring our level to the game tonight, which is probably the thing that they’ll be most disappointed on when they review it and they reflect.”
When asked if he spoke to the players at full-time, Fletcher said: “I didn’t say too much because it’s not the time, they’re really disappointed. I said I was proud of them for the season that they’ve had, for the efforts that they put in, and as I said to you there, we’ll look back at it and probably be disappointed in terms of how we executed the game plan or the level that we brought in the game.
“I think you can see the nerves, too many ball losses, too many turnovers against a really good Man City team with two fantastic wide players who are going to cause the problems.
“And if the game becomes open and transitional, it’s going to be tough, and it’s not really our style that we’ve had all season. We’ve had a lot of control from high levels of possession, which means that you run less and you have to defend less, so that wasn’t the case tonight, so it was a difficult time to experience that.”
United’s U18s were narrowly beaten by City to the Premier League North title this season. They also suffered defeat on penalties against Crystal Palace in the Premier League Cup final last month.