FA PREMIER ACADEMY LEAGUE

 

Saturday 8th May 2010

 

Manchester City  2 v 5  Everton

Benali

Bunn(P)

 

Well what can we say other than this game sees the first time that the senior academy team has conceded five goals at home in their history and perhaps their worst ever display I have witnessed as against a strong Everton side City were at sixes and sevens. City's goals were merely consolations at the end of the game with leading academy scorer and captain Ahmad Benali getting the first and Harry Bunn getting the second from the penalty spot.

 

City's promoted goalkeeper Tom Halsall was making his home début and surely would have liked an easier test and perhaps more protection from his defence as he was left exposed on too many occasions. After playing well at Wolves on Tuesday he will probably admit he did not have his best games today but did pull off a very fine save to deny Everton scoring a sixth from the penalty spot.

 

Everton's first goal came from a corner in the seventh minute that was not cleared and the centre forward hit the ball through the players. Their second was a through ball from midfield that the defence were left static and the centre forward powered on and finished low and hard into the bottom corner.

 

The third goal was a twenty five yard strike that seemed to deceive Halsall as the ball went past him and into the back of the goal; as the first half ended three nil. The fourth was the centre forward's hat-trick goal as he came in from a cross from the right and slid in to push the ball into the near post corner of the goal.

 

The fifth goal was again from a corner that was not fully cleared and hit through the crowd of players to leave Halsall unsighted. Everton nearly got their sixth when Freddie Veseli rashly dived in in the area and conceded the penalty. The offended player stepped up to take the kick but as previously mentioned Halsall made the right decision to push the ball away to safety.

 

City then had a mad couple of minutes of their own when Benali's persistence inside Everton's area to finally get the ball into the back of the goal. They then worked the ball well on the right and into Bunn but he turned sharply and was brought down for the referee to point to the spot and up stepped Bunn as he sent the goalkeeper the wrong way.

 

As previously mentioned I would not be fully surprised if City have a similar poor season next season as at present we do not have the players coming through that will add much to what we already have. So the 2011/12 season is the one in which we should be challenging once again; but the players graduating to the reserves will certainly add that something extra.

 

Team: Halsall(GK), Grandison, T Skogsrud(K Skogsrud), Veseli, Smith, Elabdellaoui, Helan, Benali(Capt.), Hippias(Zander), Bunn, Roman Olle.

 

Subs: Siaw. Morrissey

 

The U16s also had a disappointing day as they lost 3-2 after being two nil up.