Teamwork and togetherness the key to victory for under-21s

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Head coach Shannon Ruth and Miah Oriola reflect on Monday's PL2 play-off win against West Ham United.

Nick Szczepanik

2026-05-05T19:30+01:00

Shannon Ruth's team now face Tottenham Hotspur for a place in the final. 📸 by James Boardman.

Albion under-21 head coach Shannon Ruth praised his side’s teamwork and togetherness after the 3-0 victory over West Ham United that sent the Seagulls into the Premier League 2 play-off semi-finals

They will now face Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Friday for a place in the final, against either Manchester City or Manchester United.

“Fabian [Hurzeler] mentions the word ‘togetherness’ a lot and I think it's our job also to help the young players realise the importance of the team,” Ruth said. “As a young player when you come through the academy, you only think about your journey.

“When you get to under-18s, under-21s and certainly the first team you've got to start to understand your part within the team and, if you want to be successful, you need to be successful as a group.

“We try and push that mantra too and they were really together on Monday. Some of the emergency defending and some of the box defending to keep a clean sheet was really, really good.

“West Ham are a good side with some really good individuals. They've got some good physicality about them. Even our goals didn't really dent their belief too much so we had to work really hard to try and wrestle control of the game.

“It was going to take everybody to defend, to keep a clean sheet and it was going to take everybody to try and win the game including the subs who came on and I'm really, really pleased with that.

“I think we've timed our form pretty well towards the back end of the season and we're looking forward to Friday.”

Josh Robertson made it 3-0 in the last ten minutes of the game. 📸 by James Boardman.

Right back Callum Mackley headed Albion into the lead from a corner after 35 minutes and Shane Nti made it 2-0 five minutes later.

West Ham played the final 22 minutes a man short after Joshua Ajala was sent off for a reckless challenge on Miah Oriola. Josh Robertson sealed the victory with the third goal after 83 minutes.

Oriola was a constant threat down the left and the first goal came after he collected a clearance, carried the ball half the length of the field and forced a corner.

“Ben Barclay, the centre-back, said when you get a chance to try to create something just to relieve that pressure,” Oriola said. “I managed to create a cross, it got blocked out and we got a goal from the corner.”

The second came when Oriola beat his man to the line and crossed low for Nti to tap in. “I was just thinking, ‘Let me try and keep it in play, get it in the box and I know someone was going to be there.’ It happened to be Shane.

“It was a great game. Obviously, there were times where they had a good spell so I just feel like I needed to try and create some attacking threat and opportunities against their back line and it led to a couple of goals on the cross.”