'Oscar Bobb is the perfect example' - Man City academy view after defeat to Manchester United

Manchester City's Elite Development Squad forfeited the bragging rights in Manchester on Monday.

Brian Barry-Murphy's side made the trip to Leigh Sports Village to take on Manchester United and lost 2-1, despite delivering an encouraging second-half performance.

The likes of Micah Hamilton, Joel Ndala, Jacob Wright and Mahamadou Susoho started the game and it was a strong City side, but the youngsters were, unfortunately, unable to salvage a draw under the floodlights in the Premier League 2 after falling two goals behind.

ALSO READ: United send message to City with academy win

ALSO READ: United U21s vs City as it happened

Stephen Mfuni, who came on as a substitute at half-time, scored City's goal and that was a memorable moment for the youngster, who only celebrated his 16th birthday last week.

Barry-Murphy is an engaging talker and he spoke to the Manchester Evening News after the game to reflect on the performance. "The players might not understand being bottom of the league because they've never experienced it before and I have in my career," he said.

"They can feel as if it's the same every week, but it's not. There's a big difference in how we played in previous games and how we progressed to play tonight, so I was exceptionally pleased with a lot of what I saw and it gave me more reason to enforce practice the final bit of how we score goals.

"Because the players have to do that [finish the chances] irrespective of how we're doing and when it's the determining factor of the game, it gives me even more chance to focus on that."

City looked like an improved side after half-time and a draw would have been a fair result based on chances created. "We we very aware of what we wanted to do," Barry-Murphy said when