Premier U-21 League,
               Division 1, 2014-15
             Lamex Stadium, Stevenage
         Monday 27th October 2014, 7.05pm

              SPURS     v    CHELSEA
          (White/Blue)      (All Blue)
              4-3-3          4-2-3-1

               1(0)            0(0) 

            Luke McGee  1  Mitchell Beeney
          Alex McQueen  2  Todd Kane
        Connor Ogilvie  3  Alex Davey
         Filip Lesniak  4  Ola Aina
        Dominic Ball(C) 5  Fankaty Dado
Cameron Carter-Vickers  6  Jordan Houghton(C)
       Emmanuel Sonupe  7  Charly Musonda
           Harry Winks  8  Ruben Loftus-Cheek
     Cristian Ceballos  9  Dominic Solanke
         Joshua Onomah 10  Jeremie Boga
        William Miller 11  Alex Kiwomya

     Daniel Akindayini 12  Charlie Colkett
             (9)80Mins     (6)46Mins
        Jonathan Miles 13  Billy Granger
        Ruben Lameiras 14  Jake Clarke-Salter 
            (10)72Mins
    Kyle Walker-Peters 15  Kyle Scott
             (3)72Mins     (11)89Mins
                       16  Kasey Palmer
                           (10)68Mins

Scorers:- 
          Sonupe 88 

Coach:- 
          U. Ehiogu        A. Viveash

Attendance:- 1457

Referee:– C. O'Donnell
Assistants:– P. Crossland & I. Corner
Fourth Official:– L. Grimsey

It was a chilly evening for Spurs' return to Stevenage where the visitors were high flying Chelsea who sat third in the table unbeaten in five games. Their last game was a 2-2 draw with Fulham while Spurs lost away to Norwich City. With another game this week, Ugo Ehiogu had to stretch his small squad bringing in Carter-Vickers and Walker-Peters from the Academy. The game kicked off late to accommodate Chelsea TV.

Spurs lined up with McGee behind Ball and Carter-Vickers with McQueen at right back and Ogilvie on the left. Lesniak anchored the midfield with Onomah and Winks. Akindayini was on the bench so Ceballos led the line with Sonupe on his right and Miller on his left.

Spurs defended the North end in the first half in which the Blues tried to catch them cold with a quick attack that saw Solanke played through. However, Carter-Vickers was across to block. Spurs' first attack saw Ceballos pick up the ball near the halfway line and run at the Chelsea defence before drawing a save from Beeney.

Both sides played open passing football at a fast pace which saw the ball moved from end to end. While we saw some good approach play both defences stood up to the task of protecting their keepers. Onomah and Loftus-Cheek stood out as the players pulling the strings.

After Miller's effort was blocked, Onomah won a corner from Beeney's save. Spurs had a series of corners, and from one of these, Ceballos found Onomah attacking the near post to win another. Onomah played in McQueen on the right for the defender to fire wide.

Dabo came inside to fire over for a corner, which was taken by Kiwomya. McGee saved Davey's header. Chelsea's Todd Kane got down the right and his cross to Solanke saw McGee save his effort. The ball was up the other end quickly for Ceballos to force a save from Beeney.

Chelsea made one change for the second half which began the same way as the first with both defences pushing up squeezing the play into the middle third.

Musonda drove forward and fired over early on, before Onomah played in Miller for a chance that was blocked. Winks released Miller with a through ball but Beeney was out quickly to block. Ceballos tried to lob the keeper from 30 yards, but the ball dropped just wide. Winks drove wide before being robbed by Aina, who exchanged passes with Musonda before bringing out a good save from McGee.

Spurs made a double change with an eye on Friday, taking off Onomah and McQueen for Lamerias and Walker-Peters. Dado fired over just before Spurs made their last change replacing Ceballos up front with Akindayini.

McGee saved a low drive by Kiwomya at his near post before Spurs began to push the visitors' defence back in search of a goal. Winks fired over before they made the breakthrough. Akindayini found space on the left and his cross found Sonupe coming across to the near post. The winger was in space for once and was able to take a touch before hitting a rising shot into the net.

Chelsea tried to respond but their last chance was headed over by Scott from a corner in the last minute on normal time. Spurs saw out the four minutes of added time to take the points.

In a game of few clear chances this game looked a draw from early on. Both defences kept a tight rein on the opposition for almost the whole game giving attackers few sights of the target, restricting most efforts to long range shots. There were hardly any free kicks in a very open game played at pace by both sides who kept the ball on the deck. Spurs got the break thankfully and now look forward to another tough game on Friday when they go to Liverpool.

Last season Liverpool beat Spurs 5-0 thanks to a couple of first team players. It was former Spurs academy coach Alex Inglethorpe's first victory over his former club in four games. The game will be held at Langtree Park in St. Helens and should be shown on Liverpool TV if you can't make it.

Ray

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