U's win 3-0 in friendly
Oxford United’s under 18s enjoyed a 3-0 win over our guests from SC Wiener Neustadt on Monday.
Coach Leon Blackmore-Such reports:
“This was an interesting game for us. Wiener Neustadt had played the under 16s at the weekend as part of their tour and so we knew a little about them. The game started a bit slowly, possibly because of that first game; both sides looked like they were sussing each other out a little bit. The Austrians were sitting in and hard to break down, and that gave us a different sort of challenge.
“We tried to be very forceful inside and didn’t use the wide areas as well as we wanted to, which was something to learn from. You can’t just keep trying to play through sides and you have to adapt when you come up against sides playing differently to the majority of sides we face every week. We still tried to play at a good tempo but moving people out of their slots was difficult for us: the movement in the first half wasn’t quite bright enough.
“We still had real control of the game and went 1-0 from a set piece that Charlie Hawtin got on the end of and put in the back of the net. So 1-0 up at half time and then we made a few changes. We had played a team of first years in the first half and then brought on some of the slightly older players at the break- Miles Welch-Hayes, Lewis Hayden and George Jeacock.
“It was a similar story with us having lots of possession and trying to get gaps, but we asked for a bit more cuteness and cleverness around the box. Graham Bryan got past his full back and into the box and was brought down. He got up and took the penalty himself so 2-0.
“We put on Ty Deacon and Kieron Diaz-Benitez, switched play , Miles got forward more and Lewis distributed the ball well in the middle. From that George Jeacock cut inside, had a shot that was saved, and he put in the rebound for 3-0.
“There were long periods where we had plenty of the ball but from entertainment purposes we could have taken a few more risks and been a little more adventurous, but it was a great experience and we thank Wiener Neustadt for coming over. We hope they enjoyed their stay.
United
Agboola, C Hawtin (Welch-Hayes 46), Trialist (Deacon 60), Carroll, Tuttle (Diaz-Benitez 60), Hartley, Graham, Bryan, Trialist, Baptiste (Hayden 46), Graham (Jeacock 46)