One of the better Everton Youth teams in recent years came up against arguably the best Under 18 team in the country on Friday night in Manchester with the prize of a FA Youth Cup semi final place up for grabs.
The Blues lined up as below with a very nicely balanced 4-3-3 formation:
If the reverse scoreline of 0-3 makes you think this was one-way traffic and Everton were put to the sword, you could not be more wrong. Quite simply in the first 45 minutes the Toffees were undoubtedly the better team.
No argument.
In very wet conditions, Keith Southern’s team pressed high and didn’t allow City time to play the ball out from the back. When they did manage to beat the press City’s attacks were regularly blunted by the Blues’ #6 and, for me, comfortably the man of the match, Melvin Matos. Time after time he intercepted the ball in front of the Toffees’ backline and played it simply to one of his team-mates. His performance was one that mixed Idrissa Gueye with N’Golo Kante, he was that good.
Everton, in their change strip of pastel yellow, swarmed all over City and after 10 minutes, Braiden Graham (below) had his shot deflected narrowly over the bar and from the resulting corner, young Harlow McEveley saw his header tipped over.
Louis Poland chose the wrong option to shoot from a narrow angle and then Olayiwola saw his strong shot saved and Ceiran Loney was narrowly wide after good right wing play by 16 year old Shea Pita.
Blues’ ‘keeper Douglass Lukjanciks did have to be on his toes for a few saves and was thankful a fumble could only be directed against the post in the 22nd minute.
City did see Samba’s beautifully curled shot strike the angle of the bar and post with Lukjanciks beaten and Reigan Heskey, son of former England international Emile, looked dangerous but the Blues probably deserved to be ahead given their performance and game plan, 0-0 at half time.
As the second half began, City did look more dangerous but with the Everton tactics working really well still, there was every hope the Blues could take the lead.
That hope came crashing down in the space of four calamitous minutes of refereeing, beginning with a call to award a penalty that was simply ludicrous. Just inside the penalty area in the 57th minute, a ball was played in towards a City attacker and Demi Akarakiri got there first and played the ball. The City player did go to ground but in all honesty was not looking for a penalty decision, quite simply because he knew it wasn’t one.
The referee was perhaps the only person in the ground that saw it was a foul and had there been VAR there is absolutely no question it would have been overturned. The resulting protests from Everton players resulted in cards for Akarakiri, Lewis Evans and Melvin Matos. It was a crazy moment from the official who lost control and, like some affronted schoolteacher with his authority in question, started waving his card about. The penalty was coolly converted, 0-1.
If that was bad enough, in the 61st minute, Olayiwola (below) went for a challenge on the touchline, no hint of violence, petulance or retribution, just an honest challenge that I don’t think made any contact with the City defender. There was certainly no protest from the defender or his team-mates but there was no need as the hapless official incredibly brandished a red card in the #10’s direction. It’s unclear if it was for a deemed foul or a piece of language that no referee ever has heard before. Put simply, the referee was beginning to think the game was about him rather than a thrilling contest between two top sides. Embarrassing!
With a tiring 10-man team, Everton conceded two goals quickly in the 72nd and 74th minutes, 0-3.
Keith Southern made a raft of substitutions in the last 20 minutes to give the youngsters game time and a consolation was almost there in the 90+1st minute as McEveley saw his acrobatic overhead kick go just wide.
On a positive note some of these players will be eligible for at least one more FA Youth campaign after this one. In normal time and before the refereeing aberrations, the team took a top side and threatened to beat them, no shame in that. Keith Southern reflected on the night’s work:
“Football can be cruel, the lads learnt a harsh lesson tonight. Would we have won the game with 11 men without a harsh penalty going against us, who knows? But, we did not respond well to that penalty decision and it cost us”
“I thought we gave a really good account of ourselves in the first half. We looked threatening on the counter, we showed some quality moments at times and the set pieces were good.
“They’re obviously going to have spells in the game where they pin you in, but we wanted to get in the game and stay in the game.
“We knew we’d have to suffer at times without the ball, but we also knew that we’ve got good players ourselves and at the right moments we could turn it over and we could hurt them on transition.
“I thought it was cruel, but it’s a learning curve for one or two in there.”
Southern was unsurprisingly loath to blame the awful officiating, but it was clear to see that the young Blues has been robbed by some truly terrible decision-making. That is the cruelty that they all would have learned last night.
