AFC Bournemouth
Under-18s lead coach Dan Carroll aired his delight following a convincing 5-2 win over Newport County in his first game in the dugout with the side.
Announced as part of the new coaching team for the age group alongside former Cherries midfielder Andrew Surman on Friday, the duo headed for Wales with their side on Saturday.
A hat-trick for Daniel Adu-Adjei, as well as goals from Lewis Brown and Baylin Johnson, on the day saw it end with three EFL Youth Alliance points.
After the game, he told afcb.co.uk: “I’m really pleased with the vast majority of that performance. They did everything we asked them to do and what we worked on in the week.
“We wanted a fast start and we got that with two goals in the first ten minutes.
“It was a brilliant first half and then it’s difficult at this age when you come in at half-time and you’re 4-1 up, naturally they dropped off their levels after half-time.
“There’s a good lesson in there for them but I thought they saw that rough patch out and regained control to carve open some great chances.”
Adu-Adjei’s first-half hat-trick set the under-18s on their way the victory, scoring all of his goals by the 37th minute.
After a string of fixtures without finding the back of the net, Carroll stated his delighted for the young striker.
“Today was excellent from Dan, I thought he was very good,” the under-18s lead coach explained. “He’s a great kid and very hard working, very humble.
“He’d gone a few games without a goal but today he was excellent and he deserved his hat-trick.”
Saturday’s win now leads on to a crunch clash with Plymouth Argyle next time out, the winner of which will have all but sealed the southwest division title.
Ahead of the visit of the Pilgrims to Canford Park Arena Carroll was pleased to be able to use all of his squad against the Exiles, having made use of his five substitutes.
He said: “That was very important for us because one of our team values is family and they’re fully aware it’s a squad game.
“So, it was important we got the subs on and they experienced it as well. Equally, we’re going to need them in the coming weeks.
“We’ve now got a really important game next week and we’ll focus on that one from Monday.”
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