A couple of weeks ago the under-18 side entertained Tottenham Hotspur at Colney in what was our first match at home for over a month
We started the game very brightly and came close to opening the scoring in the seventh minute. Tottenham failed to clear the ball with a number of our players having several shots at goal blocked in a goalmouth scramble, eventually the ball fell to Ryan Oakley whose shot hit the crossbar.
After 15 minutes good link-up play between Patrick Drmola and Josh Dawkin saw Josh make his way in to the Spurs penalty area, his shot was well-saved down low by the visiting 'keeper.
Spurs broke from defence well after 25 minutes, their forward showing good pace to out-run David Stephens and Danny Kelly, Remi Matthews came off his line and saved well in a one-on-one situation.
Just 10 minutes before the break Spurs had a penalty appeal turned down, again the Spurs center-forward broke at pace and Remi once more came out quickly to close the angle, the Spurs forward tumbled under the challenge and looked for a penalty but the referee waved away the claims.
Tottenham took the lead on 55 minutes when a cross from the left was converted from close range.
Spurs increased their lead just after the hour-mark when their center-forward rounded Remi Matthews in goal and squared the ball for his team-mate to finish from close-range.
We were finding chances hard to come by, George Francomb had a shot from range which went just wide of the target but this was as close as we came to scoring against a very strong Tottenham side and the game finished 2-0 to the visitors.
Given the manner in which we started the game I was disappointed with the end result and the second-half performance. We started well and should have taken the lead as we restricted Tottenham to just a couple of chances. We looked off the pace in the second period and did not threaten the Tottenham goal often enough and in the end they were the deserved winners.
We have six games left this season and I will be hoping that the individual and team performances improve as we look to finish the season as strongly as possible.
Ricky Martin
Academy Manager
