Arsenal’s Under 18’s surrendered their F.A Cup title this evening after losing 2-0 to Ipswich Town at Underhill. Two goals in as many minutes from Ronan Murray and star striker Connor Wickham gave the Tractor Boys the victory on a chilly night in North London.
Before kick off, Steve Bould was forced to make one change from the side which beat Crewe, with influential midfielder Conor Henderson ruled out through injury. In came Dutchman Oğuzhan Özyakup to add some extra style and creativity alongside the powerful and rugged Emmanuel Frimpong and Chuks Aneke.
Dunn
Hajrovic – Boateng – Miquel – Evina (c)
Aneke – Frimpong – Ozyakup
Deacon – Afobe – Freeman
Subs: McDermott – Obed – Byles – Yennaris – Meade.
Ipswich Town were a little cheeky before kick off, by reportedly handing in a team sheet which showed star striker Connor Wickham was not in the squad. However, he started and managed to win an early free-kick. It was whipped into the path of Seb Dunbar who controlled but lashed into the stand from a good position.
Arsenal then began to get their passing game going but the visitors were bullish in their work and played superbly on the counter attack. One slick move put through Murray in space, but he could only drag the ball across the face of Dunn’s goal. It was a warning of their potential and with just 10 minutes on the clock, they had a reward. A hopeful punt over the Gunners back four sent through the pacy Murray who kept his head and coolly slotted home inside Dunn’s post. 1-0.
Within 60 seconds they had found the killer formula again. This time a lovely passing move picked out Wickham in the box, he jinked his feet and finished well across Dunn’s goal for the curial second. At 2-0 the game was in danger of escaping the Gunners.
Chuks Aneke from 20 yards with a powerful shot and then a Roarie Deacon free-kick were all good chances, but Ipswich defended with such composure. The holders then tried something different – a passing move down the left wing which saw Freeman beat his man and cross for Frimpong. The powerful midfielder unleashed a long-range strike but it was blocked.
More huffing and puffing brought further chances but Town defended expertly and took their 2-0 lead into half time.
Half Time – Arsenal 0-2 Ipswich Town
Arsenal snapped straight out of the traps and won an early free-kick. Özyakup curled it deep into the box and managed to pick out the head of Aneke, but the leggy midfielder could only crash the ball wide of the far post. Afobe then moved out wide and collected Frimpong’s pass before driving the ball into the path of Aneke, yet he couldn’t control and the move broke down.
Once more the long ball was proving profitable for Ipswich, they exposed Miquel and Boateng’s lack of pace with a pass to Wickham, he controlled but couldn’t beat Dunn in a one-on-one. Defender Hajrovic exploded out from right back and crossed but it was grabbed and the danger was ended.
Captain Cedric Evina gave a few words to his troops and then showed them how it’s done. First a quick, lung-bursting run and shot from 30 yards and then he smacked the Ipswich bar with a cross-come-shot. Meade and Yennaris were then introduced as the urgency showed by Steve Bould.
Further chances were created by Arsenal but they lacked the killer finish. Injury time brought more opportunities but as the full time whistle blew, the dejected young Gunners knew the battle was over. The FA Youth Cup will have a new destination this year, and don’t bet against it being Ipswich.
Article By – J.Sanderson
I am lil bit confuse here J. In your report u said Aneke was playing as a midfielder alongside Frimpong but the live commentator from Arsenal.com said Aneke was playing as a striker. So which one is true?
o well !
This really sucks. I hope people don’t start coming down on them now. It sounds like it was going to be really tough to defend the title this year having lost so many key components from last year’s winning squad.
Well anyway, better luck next time for the youngster..
This will humble any of our arrogant youngsters, this will help them develop.
Losing is important.
Giandano, Aneke probably played a bit of both, or as a SS, AM.
Aneke gets a free role in the team. So he often moves forward and joins the front boys. But of course Arsenal often make little mistakes like this.
U right, this will only help them stronger mentally & realize that there are still a lot of things that they need to learn as a youngster..
Okay, thanks J..
tbh we were never gunna win this back-to-back. U get a great crop of youngsters something like every 5-10 years at arsenal: just look at the gap between our two youth cup wins. I doubt we will get another youth cup win for a few years now with the likes of eastmond, bartley, cruise, lansbury, wilshere, JET, Watt and Sunu all moving up from youth cup level. That is effectively the whole team. This crop are decent but also very young…
This is a very young Arsenal team and their preparation could not have been helped by the fact they haven’t played for weeks due to their last 2 competitive matches becoming victims of the weather. Sounds like they really tried hard to get the goals back after being caught cold early on, but they just wouldn’t come. These things happen. They’ll learn and move on.
We cant make to light or to much of this. Last year the big players were 18 years old and then Jack Wilshire. This year our big players wer 16. Obviously a big difference. The weather cant be an excuse because Ipswich I am sure had the same issues. Hopefully we sign that Wickam kid because we pried ourselves on being the best academy in England so we should probally try to get the best Young players in England. Connor Wickham sounds like the Jack Wilshire of this years youth cup.
Never mind – good luck to the Ipswich boys. Chins up gooners.
Naaa we dont need to sign Wickam do we??? really?? Don’t we have some strong players that could make it. Barazite is older than him but he is coming back, we have Afobe, and Aneke who is very offensive from the midfield. We’ll sign a new scholar who can be just as good as Wickham. If he WANTS to come then sign him up!! But there is A LOT OF TIME to scout and find our own talents. Remember this is the youth team, not the first team or the reserves. I know we will find and sign other youth talents from other academies, but that doesn’t make it fair or just. We have so much time to find our own. If we sign a young player who can help the first team then that’s another story. But if we really want to truly be able to boast that we have the best youth academy in the world, then it means we have to find our own players from the beginning. I’m not saying I don’t apreciate the fact that we have developed other players who didn’t start with Arsenal. We ARE THE BEST at that bar none. I know this will never happen, but in an ideal scenario this would be the case. At least that would be the way I would want it. I’m gonna get killed for this now so I’m ready for it.
Well it was alwasy going to be tough, and when you consider that Jack Wilshere could have played for our team and the difference he would have brought to the side and Ipswich star man Wickham is in their first team now it is not something to get too upset over
It’s a shame, but it seems most of these guys will be around next season. They’ll be older, wiser and hopefully will taste revenge.
To be honest, Wickham is a bit of a ring-in if he’s been consistently playing at a higher level. It would be like Arsenal dragging back Wilshere for big U-18 games. Not the right spirit. I don’t see the need to sign him either. We have a string young strikers all ready to go and I think playing beyond his level as well.
could anyone tell me if özyakup was good tonight?
We’ll be stronger next year.
McDermott
Hajrovic – Boateng – Miquel – Brislen-Hall
Ozyakup – Yennaris – Aneke
Ansah – Afobe – Meade
10 last year scholars. Last year’s double winning team had 9, and it’s important to have a majority of last year scholar’s to win this competition.
TCrocker: Well this group is supposedly rated higher by Wenger and the coaches than the FA Youth Cup winners (it indeed has the players he refered to as ‘technically perfect’ and the ones that were given the honour of playing with and holding their own with Brazil in training.) The age difference and experience is the most obvious change to this years team. Also the fact that key players like Wilshere have been promoted above the FA Youth Cup even though eligible.
I would really like Connor Wickham to come to Arsenal but i personally can’t see it happening anytme soon IMO.
Connor Wickham type of striker is missing in our academy but I understand why wenger doesn’t buy one: it makes everybody play on the ground otherwise we’d play long balls and high crosses 50% of the time and that’s not so great for an academy that promises you to learn to play on the ground. With Wenger’s philosophy for the academy then Bendtner might well be the last 6ft2+ striker we ever get
Maybe last seasons squad was a golden generation. With the likes of Wilshere, Lansbury and Emmanuel-Thomas. No one doubted that any of the best of this seasons squad matched Wilshere who made the big difference.
Don’t know what happened during the game or what formation SB opted for but he probably changed to a diamond formation at some point with Aneke operating behind Afobe and Freeman as he’s tended to go for this particular formation on a few occasions so far this season. In fact, it’s served the lads better than the 4-3-3. I can’t say i’m surprised with the elimination or the result tonight. I knew we wouldn’t do much in this years comp but like a few have mentioned, this is a good experience for the lads and they will be better next year as many will be second year scholars and the defence will have improved by then (this is what is sorely letting the current under 18’s down).
TCrocker – Although you may be right in saying it may be some years before the youngsters win the youth cup again, i can assure you that there is a whole plethora of exciting talents being churned out at Hale End. AW’s dream is coming to fruition in that sense.
Also, i feel the coaching staff have finally decided that JET should be a striker and are moulding him for that Ibra/RVP style frontman role where he drops deep and gets involved in the build-up of attacks as well as getting on the end of them. Not, having blistering pace to get in behind but possessing the intelligence and timing of runs in behind and having enough pace to hurt the opposition like that too. He can be a top, top striker. A complete one, if you will.
Ummm, it doesn’t really matter. Bould has said many times the performance and development of the team is much more important than the result. Sure, we could play all defensive and ugly, and win, but how would that help the first team?
That’s why teams like Coventry, Ipswich, Liverpool, and Southampton have often featured in the Youth Cup finals but they are hardly producing any decent players are they?
I’m pretty certain that Southampton and Ipswich have done their bit for creating good, potentially big name players (Dyer, Wright, Walcott and Bale spring to mind from the past 10 years- what the teams that bought them did to achieve top status or squander their talent is another matter.)
TJ- what indication are you getting of JET being moulded as a striker? Has he played there recently?
And even that Coventry team that got smashed by the greatest Youth team of all time, the West Ham ’99 side, had the likes of Kirkland, McSheffrey and Davenport in it! Just as many professionals produced as the Arsenal teams of that era, with the likes of Sidwell, Thomas and Volz etc.
hold on aminute AndyE, as Samuel correctly states, Ipswich produce some awesome players over the years through the youths, have you all forgotten Bramble, Ambrose along with Dyer and Wright let alone Englands prolific league goalscorer Darren Bent!!
i am a little bit disapointed than we lost but that’s life ….u can’t always win…we have a very young team , these kids needs to gain experience and i’m sure next year they will be great
BTW conor wickham is the most promising young teenager english striker from my point of view more than afobe ….i don’t know if u guys have seen him play, but i’ve seen him many times with their first team and i could tell you than this kid at 6foot 4 got an fantastic technique , he is tall but not so strong well at 16 years old your body ain’t fully develop yet…..he is not the typical big and tall centre forward like heskey or peter crouch , he got an unbelievable technique for an english player…for me he looks like a young ibrahimovic.
No doubt he will become a fantastic player ,one of the best english striker if he develop his technique ability….and who more than arsenal system could help him on that??….
If arsenal could buy him ,arsene have to do it immediately!!
Samuel – In the recent ressies’ 4-2 win over West Ham mate. He played as the spearhead of the attack. Yeah sure, he got a hat-trick and all but what intrigued me most (while others raged and cancelled their ATVO memberships, i thought i’d watch the highlights before making any rash decisions) was the way he linked up with the midfield, coming deep with his back to goal. I believe this role suits him best. He shields the ball really well, has very good finishing, good left peg, great in the air, good vision and understanding of the game as well as with his team-mates around him.
Samuel – In the recent ressies’ 4-2 win over West Ham mate. He played as the spearhead of the attack. Yeah sure, he got a hat-trick and all but what intrigued me most (while others raged and cancelled their ATVO memberships, i thought i’d watch the highlights before making any rash decisions) was the way he linked up with the midfield, coming deep with his back to goal. I believe this role suits him best. He shields the ball really well, has very good finishing, good left peg, great in the air, good vision and understanding of the game as well as with his team-mates around him.
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@ Samuel, Arsenal basically played him in the false nine role [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/oct/27/the-question-false-nines-jonathan-wilson ] just like we use RVP for the 1st team.
Super – That’s basically what it is mate but that’s some bollocks about Tevez doing for Man Utd or it’s what Barca adopted last season. United played a 4-4-2 most of the time and Tevez hardly got a look-in at times (that’s partly the reason he isn’t there anymore). As for Barca, they have a 4-3-3 where the front three are always rotating, thus making them hard to pick up. Guardiola’s a very smart guy, he knew this year it would be very hard to repeat the same feat as teams would have figured them out and that’s why he paid such an extortionate fee for Ibra and shipped off Eto’o (that and he didn’t really like Eto’o much). Ibra does that role for them though.
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view