ACADEMY: Barnsley’s FA Youth Cup victory thrilled Mark Delaney

Mark Delaney expressed his happiness and appreciation for his team’s efforts as they defeated Barnsley in the FA Youth Cup.

Early goals from Rylie Siddall, Kai Andrews, Conrad Ambursley, and Aidan Dausch helped City overturn a deficit.

With the victory, City advances to the competition’s fifth round, where they will face either Millwall or Grimsby Town.

After the final whistle, Delaney gave a speech that reflected on the action throughout the game.

Looking back at the game…

Yes, we are quite happy.

“We acknowledged that the game against Barnsley would be difficult, but we also mentioned the chance this presents for us. All eyes were on us and our preparation.

“The boys were in a good place and the training was spot on, so losing by one goal was unexpected, but they handled it well,” the boys said.

“I felt we deserved it in the end and I thought we came back really, really strong.”

Bouncing back from conceding early…

It happened at Preston, and we don’t want to keep doing that because going forward, the better teams we play against might not give you the opportunity to get back into it, but it does highlight our team’s resiliency.

“We probably generated more in the second half, as seen by the four goals we scored—three in the first and even one in the second. We’re incredibly happy with how we recovered from it, even though we were able to defend what we had.

Praising his side…

To be honest with you, I could name them all because, against a formidable Barnsley squad, winning requires a team effort.

I could name players starting at goalie and going all the way through, but as an academy, we’re thrilled.

We are proud of the athletes and ability we have within our four walls, but it’s nice to be able to showcase it for our home fans and, ideally, the first team personnel as well.

Conrad Ambursley scoring the pick of the bunch…

“He consistently performs it during training. He’s a pretty self-assured boy, and I felt that tonight he displayed hints of his uniqueness.

“In that top three, we have Riley Siddall, who started the goal scoring, coming off the right, Aidan, who you know is a threat in behind on the shoulder, and Conrad, who I thought was a threat all night, coming off the left.”