Disappointed with the result, but a decent performance all round. Thought Lingard was trying to do too much on his own, Shaw looked a bit rusty, but when he started to push forward more, we looked so much more dangerous, didn't happen enough though. Grant had a couple of saves, but wasn't really troubled, and Tuanzebe also looked a bit off the pace first half, but won some good headers second half, and looked better. Of the youngsters, Laird was the obvious outstanding player, Garner and Levitt were under no real pressure, but when they were, occasionally, they had the skill to get out of the situation. Not many defence splitting passes, but with Astana sitting back it was difficult, thought we could have been a bit quicker in some aspects of our play, it's OK to have a slow build up if you suddenly inject some pace into the attack, as we did when Chong missed that chance. Greenwood has still to learn how to cope with the physicality of senior football, as I'm sure he will, but will get on the end of a lot of crosses into the box because he's a clever player. Gomes looks class, and always tries things, not always the safe pass for him, Chong definitely needs a season of Championship football, as many have said. Bernard just looked a little overawed at times, but really unlucky with the second goal, but I'm sure he will learn from it (where was Shaw?). Mellor had one terrific run, when Gomes hit that great free kick (couldn't understand why Ole took him off, if we had got another free kick? Perhaps he will be on the bench Sunday? Garner certainly will), Ramizani also tried things, but a little light, both him and Mellor worked their socks off for the short time they were on there, Galbraith really didn't have time to make any telling contributions. Laird looked a very very good player, defensively sound, but going forward he was immense, probably needs a little more confidence to come inside onto his left a bit more, overall he was my MOM.
Overall I think the youngsters will have learnt a lot from that experience, and I hope that Ole, Nicky Butt and Mike Phelan have a chat with each one of them individually on the trip back, and point out where they went wrong, could improve and what to work on in training back home.