Midfielder Cameron Humphreys believes winning the Professional Development League Cup capped a very good season for the Blues' U18s, who thrashed 10-man Coventry City 7-0 in the final at Portman Road this evening.
Humphreys, 18, who was on the bench for the first team at Crewe at the weekend, claimed three assists as the Town youngsters romped to victory.
"Buzzing! It’s been a good season for us,” Humphreys, pictured above left with Gerrard Buabo and Jesse Nwabueze, said. "The U23s have been pushing for the play-offs, the U18s were close to the play-offs.
"This cup run’s been brilliant, everyone’s played a part in it. I’ve just seen here all the injured boys, all the players that weren’t in the squad tonight, it’s good for them, it’s good for everyone and we’re all celebrating together. A good way to win it in the final with a good team performance and a good result.”
Coventry were reduced in number in only the 13th minute when Abel Alabi was dismissed for denying a goalscoring opportunity.
"I think we reacted really well,” Humphreys reflected. "Sometimes it can go one of two ways, we could take it easy and just pass for passing’s sake and do that, or we can do what we did and be professional and be ruthless and keep going and keep doing the right things.
"And that was led by us as players as well as the coaching staff, just to make sure we kept going and we didn’t give them a chance, don’t let them back into it. We don’t slow the game down, we stick to our principles and what we want to do.”
Having established their lead, Humphreys felt it was important not to just sit back: "You’ve got to keep pressing, we’ve got to keep going. If it was 11-v-11 playing our style we want to get after them, we want to press, we want to win the ball high up the pitch.
"That doesn’t change when they go down to 10 men, it might make it easier for us but mentally it’s the same game. We’ve got to get on top of teams, press teams and when we get control take the chances like we did today.”
Humphreys says he’s enjoyed playing under Atay this season: "It’s been brilliant, I’ve had two years with Adem and we got to the semi-final of the Youth Cup [last season] and we’ve finally won something.
"Training every day with the U18s and U23s, it’s good, the lads are loving it and it’s shown on the pitch with some good team performances and some good results.”
The midfielder was pleased that 559 fans turned out to watch them in action: "It was brilliant support, there were a lot down here for an evening game. Really good.
"We’re not used to playing in front of these sorts of crowds so I thought the players dealt with that really well, handled the occasion well and we got the result that we wanted.”