Anthony Wright | We are disappointed, but the players have been terrific this season

Coach Anthony Wright praised the incredible efforts of the Swansea City Under-21s’ squad despite the disappointment of seeing their season come to an end with a 4-2 Professional Development League play-off defeat at Sheffield United.

The development side had reached the play-offs for the first time in eight years, having also reached the final of the Nathanial MG Cup earlier this season.

However, goals from Louie Marsh and Jay Tinsdale put the Blades in control of the semi-final at Bramall Lane.

Glory Nzingo’s fine strike pulled a goal back but Sam Aston and Zain Tahir put the result beyond doubt prior to Thomas Woodward’s late consolation.

Wright admitted Swansea’s performance has fallen short of their best, but encouraged the players to be proud of their efforts over the course of the 2023-24 campaign.

“As much as we are disappointed, we have to reflect on the season as a whole this year and I think the boys have been absolutely terrific,” said Wright.

“This was our 43rd game of the season, it’s a long season with a small group of players this year. 

“We’ve pushed the boys to their limit at times, we’ve reached the cup final of a senior men’s competition, we got through to the knockout stage of a category one competition (Premier League Cup), and we haven’t been in the play-offs for eight years.

“That shows you what level the players have been at, I’ve told the boys that we are all going to be disappointed with the reality of the performance, but we can’t be disappointed with the season.

“We haven’t performed at the level that we know we can on this occasion, we’ve got a real disappointed changing room in there.

“Our reflection is that we just didn’t perform as we know we can throughout the game. We allowed the opposition to get on top of us, didn’t make right decisions, we knew what they would bring and unfortunately we fell into that trap.

“We made too many individual errors which cost us on the night and as a group.”

Wright also took the opportunity to thank those players who will be leaving the club following the conclusion of the campaign, and praised the attitude and application they have shown at a challenging time. 

“For the last six weeks we’ve had a group of players, with some of those players having been told they won’t be with us next season, and each and every one of them have stuck to their task, shown they are incredible human beings and given everything to get us in this position,” he added.

“We thank them because they’ve now set the bar for this next group to come through next season.

“We go back to the drawing board as a squad, we start again with a new recruit of players who will be a lot younger, so we look forward to that challenge.”