Just a short piece on Tuesday's whatever it’s called Cup game against Arsenal’s under 21s. Despite the competition rules saying that at least four first team squad members should be involved, City fielded the following line up;-
Turner, Kingdon, Keita, Debono, Parfitt, Apter, Twose, Perrett, Spiers (thought he was on loan to Merthyr?), George, Ola
Subs Dennis, J Davies, Hobson, Pearce, Watts, H ilaire-Clark, Sykes
A very generous interpretation of what constitutes a first team squad member may include Troy Perrett to join Matt Turner, but I see no way you can stretch it to four, so it’s a wait to see what the rule makers decide.
With all four teams level on points with a goal difference of zero, City found themselves bottom of the group on the basis of goals scored, but, essentially, it was a case of seeing what happened in the game between Newport and Exeter and trying to better that outcome to top the group.
In the event, Exeter won 1-0 and, with that match having kicked off forty five minutes earlier, City and Arsenal knew that a win would see them through in the second qualifying place at least.
The chances of the qualifier being City looked remote on seventeen minutes when Arsenal left winger Charles Sagoe, probably the most talented individual player on the pitch, set up a chance for Marcell Washington which he fired past Turner from fifteen yards.
However, the City response was immediate, well, within two minutes actually, as Perrett moved on to an Ola header and took the ball past two opponents before sliding in a classy equaliser from six yards.
Arsenal probably just about shaded the rest of the first half, but there was only one team in it in the second period with City emerging worthy winners.
They were helped on their way by the sending off of the Arsenal keeper Alexei Rojas for bringing down sub Luke Pearce on the hour mark, but Will Spiers had already hit the crossbar by then to demonstrate how the game was shaping up.
City laid siege on the visitor’s goal after that and got a fortunate second as Spiers’ cross eluded the Arsenal defender on the near post to leave substitute goalkeeper Mitchell with no chance of preventing it going in to the far corner.
Although the players tired somewhat during the twenty minutes (plus nine minutes added time) that remained, they maintained their intensity levels and continued to tackle and close down tenaciously.
Victory was sealed in added time when Trey George scored from ten yards out after substitutes Davies and Sykes had combined.
In the end, 3-1 did not flatter this very young team which rose to the occasion superbly. I’m not going to single anyone out, their names are listed above and the starting eleven plus subs Pearce, Jake Davies, Sykes and Watts were all excellent.
My one fear is that if the club is fined for a breach of the rules, does this mean that their win will be declared invalid and they’ll be thrown out of the competition? For the sake of the heroic youngsters representing City tonight I hope that does not happen – their efforts deserve better than that, this was a great win, in fact, I’d rate it one of the highlights of the season so far.
