Manchester United coach Adam Lawrence believes Chido Obi-Martin is a “natural goalscorer.”. Obi-Martin netted an impressive hat-trick in a 5-1 victory over Chelsea on Wednesday night as United progressed to the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals while James Scanlon also got on the scoresheet with a brace.. United have a supremely talented Under-18 side that will be confident of going all the way in this season’s Youth Cup and Obi Martin has notched seven goals in the competition already.. Alejandro Garnacho was the talisman of the U18 side that won the Youth Cup in 2022. The winger scored seven goals in that campaign. Obi-Martin has matched that haul after just three games and excitement is building among United supporters. about his huge potential.. After the victory against Chelsea at Leigh Sports Village, U18 boss Lawrence wasn’t permitted to speak to a handful of local reporters, but he did speak to MUTV about the performance.. And he heaped praise on hat-trick hero Obi-Martin, saying: “It was a really good night for both of the goalscorers [Obi-Martin and Scanlon]. I thought the two of them had really good performances on the whole aside from the goals. Obviously, Chido’s a natural goalscorer.. “He wants to score goals and get himself into those positions, but I was really pleased with him just in terms of his link-up play — not just stretching and running in behind but recognising when to show into feet, how to use his body to shield the ball and when to bring others into play.”. Lawrence continued: “It was a real team effort. When you come into these games, there’s always some apprehension — you know it’s about how you deal with it on the night, how you perform.. “Overall, I think you’d have to say we deserved the result and the victory. Like any tournament, you’ve got to take each game as it comes and there’ll be different challenges within them.. “We’ve obviously overcome that tonight. We have a lot of respect for Chelsea as an academy. We know they have some really good individuals and a good squad. We’ve had a couple of really good games with them of late. When you get to this stage, there’s going to be different questions posed of the group but we rose to that. Every youth player remembers their Youth Cup experiences.. “We can’t have it as the only benchmark for the players in terms of their youth team journey but it can give the players some special memories. Knowing it was Arsenal away in the next round — hopefully to be played at the Emirates — was a nice carrot for us today. That’ll be something we’ll look forward to and something for the boys to remember.”. Arsenal stand in the way of United progressing to the Youth Cup semi-final while the winners of last season’s competition, Manchester City, face West Brom in the last eight.
