Quarter-final defeat to Derby for Under-18s

Our Under-18s were found wanting in the final third and conceded at the beginning and end of the game to go down 2-0 at Derby County in the Under-18 Premier League Cup quarter-finals on Friday night.

Jack Stretton snuck in behind our back three and slotted home inside five minutes but while centre-forward Tarrelle Whittaker – up from the Under-16s for his debut at this level – whizzed a header just wide, we failed to really test Rams goalkeeper Sam French and it was his opposite number Josh Oluwayemi who was the busier custodian in spite of our second-half domination of the ball.

As we pushed forward in search of a late leveller, Stretton finished off a counter-attack with a deflected strike to wrong-foot Oluwayemi and seal the hosts’ progress at Loughborough University Stadium.

Derby forged ahead five minutes in as Morgan Whittaker controlled Louis Sibley's cross from the left into the path of Stretton, allowing him to wriggle free behind the defence and slot home. Our own Whittaker's near-post header from Jamie Bowden's cross went spinning wide six minutes later but a combination of having to play through Derby's well-organised two banks of four – sometimes even five – and some loose passes in the final third meant we couldn't muster a response.

Jordan Brown stung the palms of Oluwayemi from distance prior to the interval while the keeper was called into action again shortly before the hour mark to beat away Lee Buchanan's effort one-handed. Substitute Rayan Clarke fired into the side netting for us but Oluwayemi was needed again to deny Liam Delap and Sibley in commanding fashion. Seeing so much of the ball in central midfield as the game went on, we just couldn't break through and with the players caught up-field chasing an equaliser, the hosts made sure of their victory three minutes from the end when Tyree Wilson’s ball in from the left found its way to Delap and it squirmed in to the feet of Stretton, whose effort crept beyond Oluwayemi.

Key moment

Derby's fifth-minute opener gave them the early initiative and they were able to stunt our supply line from midfield, restricting us to only the occasional glimpse at goal and ensuring it was a frustrating evening for us.

Coach’s view

Under-18s Coach Matt Wells, without a handful of regular starters, was left disappointed after seeing his side exit a second cup competition in eight days, following last week’s extra-time FA Youth Cup defeat to Arsenal.

“Obviously it’s been a frustrating evening and a frustrating week to be honest, but it’s a good insight for the boys into the world of football and they’ve now got to be strong and bounce back from the disappointments against Arsenal and Derby. It’s the same message we keep giving them about both boxes – we’ve given an unbelievably poor goal away in a situation where we had far more defenders than they had attackers and at the other end we missed our big moments. With the type of team that Derby are, it was always going to be difficult to break them down in the second half and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that. Obviously Tarrelle Whittaker has come up, it’s a great moment for him making his Under-18s debut and it’s brilliant for the Under-16s to see that there are opportunities there but, unfortunately for him, the couple of chances he had, he wasn’t able to take, although he’ll learn from that. The other front-half boys weren’t able to do enough to break down the opposition and the quality of the final action wasn’t good enough on the night.”