Youth Watch: Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal

By: Jack | January 20th, 2011

The Cup defense is still alive. Two goals from Milan Lalkovic, his last in the final minute of regular time, helped holders Chelsea erase a halftime deficit and progress into the fifth round of the FA Youth Cup.

Lalkovic
We heart you, too

Our Under-18s put on a show and deserved to advance. Defending was not spotlighted on this day – from either side really – but we created a majority of the scoring chances and were unlucky to fall behind following a very early own goal from Billy Clifford. This came inside the opening minute.

Chance after chance arrived thereafter, with Arsenal goalkeeper Emilano Martinez making a handful of quality stops. The second half was similar in vein to the first, except with added guile. Josh McEachran was orchestrating, Lalkovic was poaching, George Saville was roaring to life and, well, Nathaniel Chalobah was bending bars with his teeth. Lalkovic leveled only four minutes into the second half; from there, we were rampant. it seemed a regular-time winner wasn’t in the cards, though, as we began to fatigue. That was until the Slovakian popped up with a cool left-footed finish following a nice cross from schoolboy Adam Nditi.

Cue the celebrations. Well done, boys.

“It is very pleasing and a massive result to beat an excellent side like Arsenal,” Chelsea youth team manager Dermot Drummy said according to the official website. “It would have been a good final and the mentality that the boys showed to come back was fantastic. Milan Lalkovic was brilliant. He made things happen by turning play around and running in behind their defence, and he finished two wonderful goals. It was a good occasion with 7,000 fans at Stamford Bridge cheering us on.”

Teams
Chelsea (4-3-3): Jamal Blackman; Ben Sampayo (Adam Nditi 58), Daniel Pappoe (c), Nathaniel Chalobah, Aziz Deen-Conteh; Billy Clifford, Josh McEachran, George Saville; Todd Kane (Anton Rodgers 73), Milan Lalkovic (Archange Nkumu 90+4), Bobby Devyne.
Arsenal (4-2-3-1): Emiliano Martinez; Danny Boateng, Sead Hajrovic (Martin Angha 80), Ignasi Miquel, George Brislen-Hall; Oguzhan Ozyakup, Kyle Ebecilio; Nico Yennaris (Josh Rees 27), Chuks Aneke, Jernade Meade; Benik Afobe.

Some Related Chelsea Posts:

Category: FA Cup, Fixtures, Match Reports, Player News

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Denny

Wow, imagine the impact McEachran has on the team. He was the only kid on the field for both teams who's had time with the first team. That must do wonders for the confidence and flow of him and the teammates around him. Smart move by Ancelotti in exposing him early, and it'll do wonders for his development. Glad to see him still playing at the youth level.
Charles

yohooo we won we won in the night light - the future is bright we gonna be allright
Robert

great stuff kids you made my day, Ancelottl must get his act right and start playing some of these kids in the first team, they cant do worse than some of our current regulars.
ph0bolus

Disappointed at the scoreline...We really should of had more than 2...Taking after the first team I guess.
frederic

Some people are just never happy...
The kids played a great game, this after going behind in the first five minutes of a game against arsenal (who scored 6 the last time out)...
Good job boys, you made us proud!
Good Job Drummy, I hope you're not the next good thing to leave the bridge, since we seem to let anyone good go these days...