Premier Academy League, Intergroup
      Fulham Training Ground, Motspur Park
        Saturday 12th March 2011, 11am

           FULHAM     v      SPURS
       (White/Black)     (All Light Blue)
            4-4-2            4-4-2

            2(1)              1(1)

       Jesse Joronen  1 Jordan Archer
       Ollie Monguel  2 Jack Barthram
        Aaron Pierre  3 Lee Francis-Angol
   Joshusa Pritchard  4 Laste Dombaxe
Stephen Arthurworrey  5 Ramil Sheriff
        Cheick Toure  6 Olumide Durojaiye
        Alex Brister  7 Kudus Oyenuga
     Ronnie Minkwitz  8 Jack Munns(C)
     Marcello Trotta  9 Shaquille Coulthirst
       Corey Gameiro 10 Alex Pritchard
          Kerim Frei 11 Paul McBride

         Grant Smith 12 Lee Angol
     Mahrez Bettache 13 Jonathan Miles
  Albert Owusa-Ansah 14 Massimo Luongo
           (4)15Mins.   (10)46Mins.
  Richard Barroilhet 15 Callum Tapping
          (10)65Mins.   (11)75Mins.
       Charles Banya 16 Kevin Stewart
           (2)56Mins.   (5)59Mins. 

Scorers:-
          Gameiro 19    Oyenuga 37pen.
          Trotta 57pen 

Booked:-
      Toure(Trip) 60    Oyenuga 54(Dissent)
   Minkwitz(Late) 68    Coulthirst 89(Trip)
   Pierre (Trip)  70

Coach:-
           K.Symons     A. Inglethorpe

Ref:-

Spurs lined up with Durojaiye and Sheriff at the back, Barthram on the right and Francis- Angol on the left. Munns and Dombaxe started in the centre of midfield with Oyenuga on the right and McBride on the left. Pritchard was in support of Coulthirst up front.

Spurs defended the southern end in the first half as the home side flew out of the blocks and put them under pressure from the start. Spurs failed to settle and could not hold possession of the ball for long, giving it away too easily in the middle, and not finding a way through the whites' rearguard. Our defenders did well to prevent their strikers from testing Archer for the opening quarter of an hour.

Archer had an easy save from Toure following a corner. He was not so lucky when Gameiro run to the near post to head home minutes later from another corner. Brister fired over and Trotta volleyed wide after being played through by Gameiro. Minkwitz saw his effort fly wide before Spurs found an equaliser. A long ball from the right beat Pierre and dropped in front of Oyenuga who lifted it high to the far post. McBride nipped in front of Joronen as the ball came down and the keeper caught him to concede a penalty. Oyenuga took the kick and drove in low to the left with the keeper going the wrong way.

After good work on the right, Coulthirst crossed to the unmarked McBride attacking the far post. The ball hit the side netting with the linesman flagging. With the last kick of the half Alex Prichard fired over the bar.

Spurs made one change for the second half replacing Pritchard with Luongo moving Dombaxe forward. This allowed more possession in the middle of the park and gave the Fulham defence more to do. A good run by Oyenuga saw Joronen save for a corner. From the corner Oyenuga dribbled along the line before cutting the ball back for Dombaxe to drive low across goal only to see it cleared off the line.

Fulham kept the pressure on and Brister hit a free kick wide before Owusa-Ansah played in Trotta who also drove wide. McBride got behind the defence and pulled the ball back for Dombaxe who fired over. Oyenuga lost his cool when he felt that we should have had a free kick and was booked after he threw the ball away. The ref up to this moment had been very lenient and even held the game up to allow a Fulham substitution.

Trotta cut into the area from the left and Sheriff tried to get out of his path but the striker went down and the ref pointed to the spot. The Italian got up and fired the spot kick to Archer's right to put the home side back in front.

Inglethorpe replaced Sheriff with Stewart to see if he could do any better. Trotta saw his header from a corner saved before Toure was booked for a late tackle on Oyenuga. Oyenuga got down the right and went between two defenders and headed for the area only to be tripped by Pierre. Pierre was booked for the deliberate foul but denied Kudus the penalty he was asking for, having fallen into the area. Dombaxe drove wide and then saw his next effort saved at the expense of a corner.

Tapping came on for McBride with Francis-Angol being pushed further up the wing. The massive Arthurworrey got his head to a corner but saw it cleared off the line by Munns. Francis-Angol got down the left channel but saw his drive hit the post and fly out of danger. Following a flurry on the edge of the Fulham area, Coulthirst lost the ball and tripped the defender as he tried to carry it out of defence. For this he was shown a yellow card by the ref. As full time approached, Dombaxe fired over before Banya hit his free kick into the wall for a corner. From the corner Barroilhet headed over what was the last chance of the game.

Spurs were well beaten today as they were never able to settle down, as Fulham kept tight and out-muscled them. They started the game with four very tall players and added a fifth later. Despite this it was not so much the height advantage but their size that made the difference. Once they put their body in between a blue shirt and the ball our players could not get to it. The second half was better as Luongo was not knocked off the ball so easily. Oyenuga was the only player that really challenged the defence and as he floated from one side to the other in the second half and they had a hard job keeping him quiet.

The U-16's also lost to Fulham 5-4 after leading 4-3 at the interval.

Next week the Academy entertain West Ham at Spurs Lodge. Because of the early kick-off at the Lane I will not be able to see it so the next game I will see is when the gooners visit the following week. The gooners, like us, have had a fairly new squad of players this season so are also still settling into this level.

Ray

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