U18 Fixtures - Season 2013/14

Ah that's sickening.

 

Well what a shame.

Fulham the better team and should be very proud of themselves - they were brilliant.

 

I really hate losing in INJURY time.

This ITV4 coverage is a little biased too. Stand up for your current club a little Steve!

 

we didn't lose in extra time - ?

 

To make it worse the lad who scored was offside. Oh well, the lads played magnificently and will have learned loads from the whole experience. I think Roberts and Dembele will be in the starting in the Palace game on Sunday.

 

Offside and a defection in the 92nd minute hell it's been one if those seasons, gutted for the boys they were brilliant hope this defeat is a big part in there learning curves

 

FulhamCOYW, I was trying to force a parallel with the heartache of the Europa League. Just rambling though really - I feel more heartache tonight than I did on Saturday!

 

Quick word on Roberts one one the traits of top top players is they tend to produce when it matters and tonight in the fa cup final I thought he stepped up to the plate and was head and shoulders above, well played son gutted for you

 

LOL Surlyc, was worrying about you.

Yeah it was a shame to lose and I think we were far the better team overall despite TV comments - 10 minutes of panic each half lost it for us. Lots of positives and we must make sure Fulham continues the good work on youth development. Loved the game.

 

Sometimes there are just no words!

It's amazing how seeing players that actually care can make such a difference to the emotion felt by the fans. Our lads tonight gave it everything and just fell short - more than we've seen all year from our "veterans". Crushing, but we were great over the whole competition. Hopefully some of those young whites will be doing a job in the first team squad next year!

 

Agreed - Proper Fulham

 

What a final. Really gutted for the lads, over the 2 legs it was hard to call a winner. We played some amazing football last night but maybe should not have sat back for so long in the second half. It is so,exciting to see what talent we have coming through the ranks. To think on top of what we saw last night you add, joronen, grimmer, Arthurworthy, David, Minkwitz, to name but a few. So proud, well done to all involved from the players to wigley and Hugh Jennings.

COYW

 

I wonder what the policy of the club is on keeping or selling the youngsters. We can't expect much loyalty as a lot of these youngsters will have agents who will look to see if other Premier clubs are interested, today's player is interested in financial gain at the first opportunity.
Look at Southampton they struggled to keep hold of their youngsters until they changed their policy of selling to subsidise their financial loses while out of the Premier.

Listened to Lee Clark talking about his loans in the Championship for Birmingham, saying that he did well with his loans in the August transfer window, but lost a lot of them back to their clubs, like Dan Burn, and at Christmas due to finance he had to take a gamble on loaning youth players from teams and they struggled against teams who had more experienced Championship players. Young players are inconsistent in their performances as although they bring enthusiasm very few make the adjustment to the pressures and performances dip.

It's going to be interesting to see which path Management take for next season.

 

I thought we were the better team in the first half, but Chelsea were better in the second. The lad with the afro hair changed things when he came on. He always seemed to have enough time on the ball to hold it, hold it, hold it until there was a telling pass on. We never dealt with him. The thing that I didn't understand was why we didn't do anything to counter their changes until putting on a new right back in the 88th minute. I don't know enough about the options we had on the bench so I can't suggest what we should have done, but once Chelsea had changed things, I would have liked us to do something to redress the balance of the game and get back on top. It felt a bit like we were trusting that a two goal lead was enough, rather than looking to regain control of the game.

I thought Roberts and Dembele were excellent in the first half, but less so in the second, but overall I agree that there was a lot to be optimistic about. Neither of our full-backs, or our keeper really shone for me last night, but the other 8 all looked like future first team players (although for most of them, probably not next season).

 

Fair summary Captain. The guy with the afro, Isaiah Brown their No. 14, made a heck of a difference as you say - I was surprised they didn't start him given how good he was in the first leg.

Thought we were brilliant in the first half but just a tad too defensive in the second although we had some great counter breaks which nearly, nearly came off. George Williams, who was outstanding all night, for instance could have passed across goal at least twice instead of trying to score himself. And Pat Roberts was so unlucky with the shot against the post. Also, from where I was sat Moussa Dembele was definitely fouled inside the box as he tried to lob the goalie - assuming we'd got that penalty and scored (okay a big if) the tie would have been over! Also I didn't think Moussa was the same after the knock he took (which may have contributed to him not doing better with the rebound off the post from Pat's shot).

Just on ref/assistant ref decisions; two of their second half goals looked offside to me.

So disappointed for the team but so proud - they played their hearts out. And I'm sure they realised the fans were with them all the way from the support they got.

 

Highlights from the Final - still convinced Dembele was fouled by the keeper.



[video=youtube;fhxwIwx6SZY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxwIwx6SZY&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

 

As most of our readers know I spend a lot of time down at the training ground, and one can
get snippets of information, from insiders.(true or false) time will tell.
Apart from the Steve Wigley news which was stated some weeks ago, i mentioned that there would possibly
be a clear out, without doubt was the reply.
But the biggest surprise was that we are about, or could loose at least 4 of of our young squad .
names mentioned Dembele, Roberts, Grimmer,Burgass, Brister & Hyndaman.Joronen.

If true Fulham should be thinking a SOUTHAMPTON mind set with our youngsters, anything else is pure lunacy.

 

In the post FA Youth Cup blues, forgot to post that the U18s lost their last game of the season 4-1 away to West Brom. As expected the side fielded was in effect our U16s.

The team finished 4th in the League with 51 points from 31 games; having won 15, drawn 6 and lost 10. It is worth pointing out that of those ten defeats, five were in the last six games when we fielded a weakened side because of commitments to the Dallas and FA Youth Cups (we managed a draw in the other game during that period). Here's a link to the final table:

http://www.fulhamfc.com/under-18s/2013_2014/league/table


And, a table of our goal scorers (it's not quite complete since don't have full details of those last 6 games):

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