FA Premier Academy League – South
    UCL Sports Ground, London Colney, Herts
    Saturday 23rd September 2006, 10.30am

          WATFORD     v       SPURS      
       (Gold/Black)        (White/Blue)  
           4-4-2              4-4-2
 
           2(2)                2(0)
 
        James Beasant 1 David Button
         Marvin McCoy 2 Alex Smith
                      3 Cian Hughton
        Jordan Parkes 4 Stuart Lewis
          Aaron Beech 5 Dorian Dervite
        Raphael Brown 6 Takura Mtandari
                      7 Jamie Davis
     John-Joe O’Toole 8 Jake Livermore(C)
                      9 Tomas Pekhart
       Kieron Forbes 10 David Hutton
     Liam Hutchinson 11 Johnathon Obika
 
         Lewis Young 12 David Hutchins
           (4)46Mins    (10)59Mins.
                     13 Richie Stroud
        Aaron Morgan 14 Callum Butcher
           (5)49Mins    (2)82Mins
                     15 Matthew Wells 
                       (4)59Mins

Scorers -                         
          Hutchinson    Pekhart 47, 85
      Smith o.g. 45+ 
 

As I was not able to travel to Liverpool, I took the chance to see the U-18’s play Watford which is just up the road from me. I was not able to get there before the kick off and missed the team sheets and the opening goal scored by the Hornets' new import Liam Henderson. I apologise now for any mistakes made in the report. The weather was the same as last year, warm with a bright sun shining in the eyes to make viewing the far side of the pitch difficult.

Spurs played with Mtandari alongside Dervite at the back, with Smith and Hughton outside them. Livermore and Lewis were in the centre of midfield with Davis on the right and Obika on the left. Hutton was paired with Pekhart as the little and large strike force.

The home side had a lot of pace and were very physical with the forwards showing good skills. Both of Spurs wide men provided the outlet for a hard-pressed defence. The home side increased their lead at the end of the half when a free kick from wide on the right was headed on twice before hitting the underside of the bar and went in off the unlucky Smith on the goal line.

Watford kicked off the second half with three players on the left going for the long ball which was won by Dervite who played a long diagonal ball to Obika on the other wing. He quickly laid it off to the overlapping Hughton who went down the line and crossed for Pekart to score at the far post. With the defenders being drawn to the near post he had a simple job to convert it in yards of space.

This bolstered the visitors and the second half was a more even contest than the first. Both sides hit the bar, Dervite for Spurs and O’Toole for the Hornets and both keepers had to make good saves, but the game was beginning to swing to the visitors. When Smith had to come off after a second bad knock, McDermott reshuffled the side with Hutchins dropping to right back, Butcher going into the back four and moving Dervite into the attack. It was Hutchins making a run into the box beating two defenders before being tripped that won us a penalty. Pekart sent Beasant the wrong way to bring the scores level and win us a point.

A draw was a fair result and both teams have ten points which keeps them in touch with the leaders. Next week we are at home to Reading who at the start of the day were on ten points and played Villa who had eight.

Ray

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