'Good aggression and mentality' - Eyoma on another big win for Academy side

Young defender TJ Eyoma paid tribute to the mentality of our Academy players after a second big cup win inside a week.

Goalkeeper Brandon Austin was the hero, making a handful of saves throughout the 90 minutes and one more in the resulting shootout as we beat AS Monaco Under-19s 3-1 on penalties at Stevenage to reach the quarter-finals of the UEFA Youth League on Wednesday afternoon.

Keanan Bennetts had earlier scored a fine solo goal to draw us level at 1-1, with TJ – a World Cup winner with England Under-17s last year – putting in a composed shift at the back alongside Brooklyn Lyons-Foster.

The result came hot on the heels of Saturday’s 4-1 win over Arsenal as we made it through to the final of the inaugural Under-18 Premier League Cup and TJ, who was unexpectedly named captain against Monaco, felt his young colleagues deserve credit.

“Today was a game of mentality,” he said. “We showed good aggression and mentality to persevere and push on, as a team we stuck together and, while maybe we didn’t go to the heights of the wins against Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid in the group stages, the boys did well to dig deep and get the win.

“It was quite difficult in the first half, hard to break them down, but as we got into the game we started to dominate the ball. It was unlucky that we conceded just before half-time but I thought we showed great mentality to come back and win on penalties.

“Brandon saved us over the 90 minutes and on penalties as well so a big thank you to him and Keanan scored a good goal – he’s been doing well in training and it came off for him today on the pitch.

“As an Academy I believe we’re doing well. The coaches are doing well for the players and we’re developing all the time. It was a big boost for us to reach the final of the League Cup at the weekend as well. It was a good win against Arsenal and hopefully we can take that into the final against Chelsea.”

With Marcus Edwards, who captained the side in Europe during the first half of the season, having joined Norwich City on loan, it was TJ who was given the armband for the round of 16 clash with Monaco.

“It was a good honour to captain the side,” he said. “I didn’t really expect it but the gaffer told me I was captain so I just took the responsibility on my shoulders, tried to encourage the boys as much as I could and thankfully we got a good win.”

There was heartbreak for Samuel Shashoua at the start of the penalty shootout as he saw his effort crash back off the post, but Kazaiah Sterling, Paris Maghoma and Oliver Skipp all subsequently scored and Brandon’s save from Francesco Antonucci contributed to our overall success.

“We knew the order of who was taking them – I was eighth – but it was just a case of trying to focus and luckily we did that,” explained TJ. “We were a bit down after the first one but we knew four more players had to take their kicks and we were confident that they would score.”

We’ll now be at home to FC Porto in the quarter-finals after they saw off Red Bull Leipzig in the last 16. Our Under-21s hosted the Portuguese side at Stevenage in the Premier League International Cup back in December, 2015, and emerged with a 4-0 victory on that occasion.