Arsenal’s Under 18’s beat Reading Under 18’s 1-0 on Saturday morning, thanks to a last minute penalty from James Dunne to all but guarantee a play-off place, and a chance to battle for the title come the end of the season.
Steve Bould made two changes from last week’s 1-0 win over Charlton, James Dunne replaced the impressive Craig Eastmond, and Gavin Hoyte came in for Luke Ayling, adding experience and a little steel to Arsenal’s young side, both Dunne and Hoyte had missed recent games after receiving red cards in recent Reserves games.
The manager also reverted to the formation he started against Charlton with, a 4-2-3-1 with Sunu and Freeman given licence to get forward with Dunne and Frimpong protecting the back-line and Wilshere given a free role to cause trouble.
The Arsenal Team
Szczesny
Blackwood – G.Hoyte (c) – Thomas – Evina
Dunne – Frimpong
Sunu – Wilshere – Freeman
Murphy
The game was made difficult by blustering conditions, the wind was affecting corners and free-kicks, so Arsenal had the early advantage as Bould’s boys were more comfortable in possession, Wilshere and Freeman were working well and making chances, however on the break Reading always looked dangerous and created several chances in a flowing first half, but either the wind or Arsenal’s Polish stopper Szczesny kept them at bay.
The second period started in a physical manner, with Dunne and Frimpong crunching into tackles as the Gunner looked to stamp their authority on the game, the classy Wilshere was at the heart of everything Arsenal did well, feeding the ball into Freeman who blazed over, Evina and Blackwood were urged to push forward as Reading were becoming tired with Arsenal’s midfield passing and keep ball football but without creating anything a share of the points looked the most likely out come.
But with the clock running down, the ball was fed into Jack Wilshere who tricked his way into the box and was clipped to the floor for a last minute penalty, Wilshere grabbed the ball and placed it himself looking for his first Under 18’s goal since injury, however the experienced Dunne demanded to take it himself, leaving the frustrated and angry England schoolboy international throwing the ball into the air, but in all the commotion, Dunne stepped up and converted from 12 yards to hand Arsenal all three points.
Arsenal are in action on Wednesday night for the Reserves, and again on Friday in the Under 18’s, all of the players who were called up on International duty have now linked up with their respective countries they are the following.
- Thomas Cruise
- Jack Wilshere
- Sam Byles
- Oliver Nicholas
- Luke Freeman
- Emmanuel Frimpong
However Arsenal will have Havard Nordtveit, and Rui Fonte back after playing for their countries recently, more team news, on Tuesday with the match preview.
Arsenal’s Under 16’s Were also in action on Saturday, they drew 3-3, the Gunner’s came from behind three times, thanks to goals from Nicholas, Banton and Afobe, read a full match report Here
Article By – J.Sanderson
I am not very supprised to see the Arsenal U16’s team almost loose to the Reading U16’s team because they have some very very very good young football players in that particular age group like Jacob Walcott, Tom Browne, Abdulai Baggie ect etc IMO
i think it makes it slightly easiesr for Reading when a large number of players who qualify for the Under 16s are playing in the under 18s team.
The Academy booses like to push the players by playing them against older players.
Reading have invested alot of time and money into thier system, its terrific, still not as good as ours i feel.
will wilkshire make it at arsenal. i feel he can play the hleb role. am i right?
ace report mate, great website
also great new banner :)
why wasn’t barazite in squad? is he still training with first team?
An Arsenal fan of many years, I was at the match with Reading and had a rather different view to the commentator. I thought Wilshire had a poor game (the penalty was for handball incidentally not a foul on Wilshire) and his petulance at being denied the opportunity to take the penalty was frankly embarassing. On that note I was also appalled by the lack of respect given by the Arsenal lads to the referee (who did not have the best of games it has to be said) and his assistants. The Reading right winger, a Korean, was really good and gave the Arsenal left back a torrid time. At the end there was some dispute between them and the Arsenal player started mouthing off at him. I was impressed by Jay Thomas’s reaction which was to shake the Korean’s hand and tell the left back to ‘shut up, he has had you in his pocket all match’! Reading were very upset about losing in the last minute. Overall I had gone to the match expecting to see a really classy performance but left a little disappointed in the quality and attitude of our young players.
so john which arsenal player stood out for you??
Sorry Lance – been away. Dunne was the stand out player for me with Jay Thomas a close second
its kool-yeah i rate thomas