City’s U18’s beat Colchester United 5-0 in the PDL on Saturday afternoon.
MATCH SUMMARY
The visitors recorded the first chances of the opening exchanges, with keeper Daniel Higgs called into early action making a crucial save to deny the visitors the opener.
After sustaining the early pressure well, it was City’s turn to press forward and opened the scoring after 20 minutes. Jacob Hobson picked out Paul Moreno in the box who cooly slotted his effort into the far corner. Jack Sykes made it two after finding himself one-on-one with the keeper, who made no mistake with the finish, confidently converting.
After the break, the hosts added a third via Leeyon Phelan shortly before the hour mark to put the Bluebirds in control. Hayden Allmark’s corner found Thomas Prickett, who rose highest and confidently converted his header, before substitute Jacob Norris added a fifth in stoppage time to ensure the victory.
Next up for the U18s is a fixture against Swansea City on Saturday, February 7th, with a kick-off time of 11am.
REACTION | TOM HUTTON
“Overall, I’m very pleased.” Tom began. “I thought some of the in-possession play that we showed in the game was really positive and it’s always nice to get a goal at the end of some of those moves. I spoke to the boys at the end of the game about how important it is to manage the game which I thought we handled well.
“We're coming off the back of three games last week, one of them being an extra time game, so at the end we did look a little bit fatigued. I thought there was a middle spell in the game where we just sustained possession and kept the ball, and we probably needed to try and be a little bit more consistent.
"There's that temptation of ‘can we go forward and score another goal’, but also trying to be disciplined and controlled in the way that we try and do that as well.
“We want to try and score goals in a controlled manner.” Tom continued. “We want to try and be controlled in our build-up and play for the thirds, but we've also got to make sure that we've got that counter-attack threat as well.
"There are exciting, attacking players in the team that can hurt players as we saw on the on the first two goals. The aim is try and get the ball forward as early as we can, because the game's about scoring goals and the first two goals are an example to that so I’m really pleased."
PRE-MATCH | TOM HUTTON
Ahead of the fixture, U18 head coach Tom Hutton said: “Our focus turns quickly to Colchester United capturing the learning for the players from the U17 game against Wrexham.
"Saturday's game will be another challenging test. The boys went deep into extra time in midweek so they need to make sure they recover to be able to train on Friday and go again on Saturday,
"Ultimately, that is the reality of the business they’re trying to get into. We relish this as another challenge.”
RECENT RESULT
The young Bluebirds come into the game following their recent 2-2 away draw against AFC Bournemouth last Saturday.
Goals from Hayden Allmark and Leo Papirnyk, the latter scoring his third goal in as many games, helped City earn a valuable point on the road.
The result left City in fourth place in the PDL standings, just one point behind second place, while this weekend’s opponents sit bottom of the table.
TICKET INFORMATION
Entry for the match at Cardiff International Sports Campus will be free for all supporters.
REACHING THE GROUND
Supporters planning on attending should use the following address:
Cardiff International Sports Campus, Leckwith Rd, Cardiff, CF11 8AZ.
The ground is located an 11-minute walk away from Ninian Park Station and a 32-minute walk from Cardiff Central Station.