York City 1-3 Newcastle United Under-21s: Vakhtang Salia, Kyran Thompson and Afner Ca scored in an EFL Trophy win at the LNER Stadium.
Newcastle United Under-21s won their first EFL Trophy match in eight years with a 3-1 win at York City on Tuesday night.
Goals from Vakhtang Salia and summer signings Kyran Thompson and Afner Ca saw the Newcastle youngsters win an EFL Trophy match in normal time for the first time since beating Grimsby Town in 2018.
York made 10 changes from their 4-0 League Two win over Swindon Town before making a substitution in the opening minute. This is due to EFL clubs being required to name a minimum of four first-team players in their starting line-up in the competition.
Vakhtang Salia of Newcastle United U21 retrieves the ball after scoring his teams first goal during the Vertu Trophy match between York City and Newcastle United U21 at LNER Community Stadium on September 15, 2026 in York, England. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)placeholder image
Vakhtang Salia of Newcastle United U21 retrieves the ball after scoring his teams first goal during the Vertu Trophy match between York City and Newcastle United U21 at LNER Community Stadium on September 15, 2026 in York, England. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images) | Getty Images
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The Minstermen took an early lead through Joe Felix before Newcastle hit back on the stroke of half-time through Salia, who capitalised on a defensive error from Ash Palmer to grab his fourth goal of the season and make it 1-1.
The 19-year-old Georgian forward missed a lot of last season following his arrival from Dinamo Tbilisi due to injury but has made a strong start to the new campaign at Under-21s level.
Newcastle went ahead early in the second half with summer arrival Thompson continuing his positive start to life in the North East by scoring on his full Under-21s debut. The 17-year-old winger joined Newcastle’s academy from Arsenal in the summer and initially joined up with the Under-18s side, but has already broken into the second-string set-up.
He then set up substitute and fellow summer signing Ca to make it 3-1 in the closing stages. It was Ca’s first goal since arriving at Newcastle as a free agent following his release from Spanish club Levante.
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Newcastle Under-21s coach reacts to EFL Trophy win
Newcastle Under-21s lead coach Robbie Stockdale told the club website afterwards: "We're really pleased with the result. We had to weather the storm for the first 20-25 minutes and I was a little bit disappointed with our one-versus-one duels.
"I felt we were a little timid in them, having the goalkeeper [Roman Dowell] to thank that the score was only one-nil after making some top saves.
"We then grew into it, got a bit of control and the game changed after scoring right at the end of the first half. In the second half, I thought we were worthy of the result, creating the better chances and we stuck to our shape, staying disciplined.
"I thought we got we deserved in the end against a really good team."
On the new signings scoring, Stockdale added: "[Kyran] is a really good player. It's not easy for anybody to come into a new club and team. We lost some players on loan, others are in the first team squad which is brilliant, and it's the next group that come through that need to grasp their opportunity.
"Afner's a different kind of profile player to what we've had in the past. It's not easy for a young player that doesn't speak a lot of English to come into our programme. There's a lot of work to be done with Afner but the raw tools, being quick and strong, are there.
"We were really young at one stage tonight and that's great experience for those players. They'll have dips, moments where it doesn't look great for them and we have to support them when that happens but we demand and push them as much as we can.”
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