United's under 18 side enjoyed a 4-0 win at home to Forest Green Rovers on Saturday.
Football League Youth Alliance
30th September 2017
Oxford United 4
Forest Green Rovers 0
Leon Blackmore Such writes:
“We had a game in midweek against the University which we won quite convincingly and that was a good warm up for a game against Forest Green where we wanted to carry on the same attacking style.
We started really well in a slightly changed shape where we had plenty of passing opportunities going forward and lots of good movement all over the pitch. Five minutes into the game we were a goal up when Albie Hopkins got brought down in the box after some good play from Graham Bryan who was available to play for us for a game from his loan at North Leigh.Freddie Niblett took the penalty and although the keeper saved it Freddie tapped the rebound home to make it 1-0.
We pressed and closed them down and that worked really well; we dominated long spells of the game and I think it was 14 shots in the first 25 minutes so we could easily have put the game to bed by then. The second goal came from good play by Aaron Heap who sent Jack Stevens through and he finished well in a one v one with the keeper.
The message was to keep doing the same things in the second half because we were doing well, but to pick the right times to press so we didn’t exhaust ourselves and let them back into it. We knew we would create chances and credit to all the boys because we were solid defensively where the back three of Dan Carr, Nathan Baker and Freddie Niblett dealt with any threats very well.
The third goal came from Heapy closing down the keeper, which is something we had said to do. He won the ball and hit the post to allow Owen James to finish it off. That was good for Owen who has been playing well and had been doing lots of great stuff without getting the goals in recent weeks.
Then the fourth goal came when Ryan Crooks cut in from the wing, played a square pass and Aaron McCreadie struck a really good effort to make it 4-0 and game over.
The one down side was an injury to Freddie which we will need to assess. Hopefully it’s not too serious, but overall this was another really good performance from the lads who are doing well at the moment and looking forward to a derby away at Swindon on Saturday.
United
Clayton, Carr, Baker, Niblett (Chilcott 60), McCreadie, Heap, Hopkins , Crooks, Bryan (Mulley 75), James, Stevens (Manning 65)