Under-18s sink Swans in League Cup

Two goals in quick succession 15 minutes from time finally saw off Swansea City as our youngsters made it two wins from two in the Under-18 Premier League Cup on Saturday.

Still unbeaten in all competitions this season, coach Matt Wells made a raft of changes for the game at Hotspur Way and it was two of the incoming players who combined to give us a deserved lead towards the end of the first half, Rayan Clarke latching onto centre-half Maxwell Statham’s diagonal pass and racing on down the left flank to convert from a tight angle.

Despite dictating the play for much of the remainder of the game, we allowed Swansea a lifeline through the rapid Mason Jones-Thomas on 69 minutes but, not to be undone, we stepped it up a gear and put the game to bed soon afterwards with goals from substitute Troy Parrott and the influential Dilan Markanday, who had started the match at left-back before moving into a more attacking role mid-way through the second period, sealing our 3-1 win.

Jones-Thomas floated a speculative shot just beyond Jonathan De Bie’s left-hand post early on, but that – apart from the equaliser – was the closest Swansea went. Markanday got forward for us and almost found Elliot Thorpe with a dangerous cut-back across the face of goal, then curled just off-target himself, but our pressure told with a 38th-minute opener. Statham, who had made a couple of timely sliding challenges earlier on to prevent Swansea from finding an opening down their left side, played an inch-perfect cross-field ball for Clarke who beat the off-side trap and sped away down the left before cutting in and beating keeper Scott Reed at his near post.

Clarke saw a fierce shot blocked in the box by Swans defender Cameron Evans 12 minutes after the restart but we suffered a setback on 69 minutes when the visitors equalised out of nowhere. Jones-Thomas had looked to be Swansea’s biggest threat with his pace and, sure enough, the first time he found time and space to run with the ball, he burst in from the left flank and unleashed a low drive from just outside the area that flew past De Bie.

Thankfully, we held it together and when Markanday advanced and impressively held onto the ball in attacking midfield before releasing Clarke down the left side of the area, substitute Parrott was left with a tap-in to restore our lead within five minutes. Rodel Richards fired straight at the keeper but we quickly added a third on 76 minutes when Markanday tricked his way past his marker on the edge of the box, coming in from the right, and coolly finished on his left foot.

Following September’s 2-1 home win over Wolves, we’ve now won our first two matches in the group stage and are in a strong position to qualify for the knockout stages ahead of our third and final outing of this round at Middlesbrough just before Christmas.

Key moment

Parrott bolstered our attacking presence when he came off the bench on 71 minutes, but it was Markanday whose contribution was most telling as we secured the victory.

Having been moved from left-back into attacking midfield as we switched to three at the back, he stayed strong under pressure from three Swansea defenders to release Clarke in the build-up to Parrott’s goal for 2-1, then added his own name to the scoresheet with a fine solo effort two minutes later.

“We were short of defensive options so Dilan played left-back today, I thought he showed a very positive attitude there, as I would expect, and later in the game he’s come up with a couple of really good moments,” explained Matt. “He was instrumental in the creation of our second goal with a run and lovely pass to Rayan Clarke, who also deserves a mention because it was another goal for him in the first half. He’s scored quite a few goals this year and that’s testament to the work that he’s putting in on the training ground on a daily basis.”

Coach’s view

Matt was pleased to see many of the fresh faces who came into the side helping to maintain the team’s run of momentum.

“I think it’s testament to the quality we have in the group that we’ve won this game,” he said. “There are 26 scholars, we made a lot of changes from the team that played at Fulham last week in the league – only four of those players started today – and the pleasing thing is that the players who’ve come in have done well. Obviously there’s different levels of performance individually but generally it’s reflective of the way we’ve been working that we can make so many changes and for the style of the performance to look the same as it did last week. It shows the competition for places that we’ve got and that’s such a big reason why we’ve been on this unbeaten run, because of the competition within the squad.”