Manchester United crowned U21 champions after beating Spurs with last-minute Guillermo Varela goal

Manchester United's under-21 side beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 at White Hart Lane to seal their second successive league title last night (19 April). The Warren Joyce-coached team secured the trophy by defeating the north London club in dramatic circumstances, having squandered a two-goal lead.

United went into the game against Spurs knowing that victory would clinch the championship, but the young Reds were forced to wait until the dying moments to secure their success.

United took a 2-0 lead early in the match, thanks to goals from Donald Love and Andreas Pereira, but Spurs came storming back courtesy of strikes from Will Miller and Joe Pritchard. The game looked to be edging towards a tightly-contested 2-2 draw before fullback, Guillermo Varela, scored a dramatic winner with United's last meaningful attempt at goal.

Joyce subsequently admitted that at one point, he thought United's young team had missed their chance of victory. "I thought we'd missed the boat because we had two or three really good chances that went begging and it was disappointing in the way we conceded," he told United's official TV station MUTV.

"Tottenham are a good side, they had nothing to lose, and they were at home on a night when they could field their best players because their first team wasn't playing. So we did it against the odds really.

"Our players were desperate at 2-2 but they weren't thinking about not going top of the league. They just wanted to win it as a one-off game and treated it like a cup final. They didn't want to draw the game, they wanted to win it."