Under 21

For those of you that may be interested Fulham v Chelsea at the Cottage on Friday 1st March.
Have as yet not got the KO time,but payment at gate not sure but I think it is £3 adults £1 concessions
and juniors,this should be a cracker,they will be looking for revenge after the 5 : 0 drubbing the under 18 took
last saturday at MP
Hopefully someone can give us offical time.

 

Found out some more details, kick off 7pm,ticket prices confirmed as above.
A great oportunity to bring along the youngsters.

 

Sounds like a good game....

Kerim Frei played 65 minutes as Fulham’s Under-21s earned a deserved 1-0 win over 10-man Chelsea at Craven Cottage on Friday evening.
Frei has made just six appearances for the First Team this season and hasn’t featured since the FA Cup with Budweiser Third Round fixture at home to Blackpool after picking up a groin injury.
But he was named in Kit Symons’ XI against Chelsea, slotting in just behind lone frontman Cauley Woodrow, while there were also run-outs for Eyong Enoh and Simon Davies.
After the Whites had squandered a host of first-half chances, Lasse Vigen Christensen finally put Fulham in front just before the hour mark.
In a fiery last quarter of the game, Chelsea were reduced to 10 men late on when Lewis Baker was dismissed for scything down substitute Chris David.
And Christensen’s strike proved enough to secure Fulham a second Barclays Under-21 Development League Group One win in five days for Symons’ side.
On a bitterly cold evening in SW6, Fulham could have opened the scoring as early as the third minute when Frei intercepted a poor pass from Chelsea goalkeeper Jamal Blackman. Instead of shooting, the Turkish midfielder opted to square the ball to Woodrow but Alex Davey nipped in to clear.
Two minutes later, Blackman had to be alert to race out of his area and head the danger clear after Davies looked to latch on to a long punt from Jesse Joronen.
On nine minutes, Woodrow hit a half-volley inches wide after meeting Josh Passley’s cross, before the Fulham striker dragged a shot past the far post 30 seconds later after taking advantage of some poor Chelsea defending.
The Blues’ first shot of note came on 11 minutes, with Islam Ferez’ dipping drive from 20 yards being well held by Joronen, before an Alex Smith free-kick at the other end was tipped round the post by Blackman in a lively opening to the match.
Woodrow went even closer to opening the scoring on 25 minutes, meeting Smith’s cross from the left but seeing his header cleared off the line by Adam Nditi.
Davies dragged a shot wide three minutes into the second half after good work by Frei, before Smith made way for David as Symons made his first substitution of the evening.
Frei then jinked down the left before fizzing a cross across the face of goal, but Fulham were in front on 56 minutes when Davies’ pullback was sidefooted home from close range by Christensen.
Three minutes later, Frei saw a shot blocked from close range, with Passley rattling the woodwork on the hour mark after Davies had burst forward from midfield.
Davies made way on 63 minutes for Omri Altman and Frei departed the action shortly afterwards for Boumesca Tue Na Bangna, who also made a welcome return from injury.
Christensen was the next player to see a shot hit the crossbar after a first-time effort from just outside the box.
Chelsea’s task got even harder in the dying minutes when Baker was shown a straight red for a cynical foul on David, with the Fulham man forcing Blackman into a fine save late on as the Whites’ numerical advantage told.
Fulham hit the woodwork for the third time in the match when Enoh saw a shot clip the outside of the post in what proved to be the final action of the game.
Fulham: Joronen, Passley, Grimmer, Arthurworrey, Kavanagh, Davies (Altman 63), Enoh, Christensen, Smith (David 48), Frei (Na Bangna 65), Woodrow. Subs (not used): Grainger, Minkwitz.

 

Throughly enjoyable,and a good report,but was it bloody cold.

 

Ah, but some of Fulham's football was brilliant, rosc, and that kept us warm. Just a pity our shooting (or lack of it) didn't quite match up. Although we hit the woodwork three times, Cauley Woodrow missed (at least) three decent chances, Simon Davies, one and goodness knows why Kerim Frei didn't try some shots.

Quite an array of talent with new boys Enoh and David on show. Eyong Enoh looked good although there were too many silly fouls and he got passed in midfield just occasionally, just too easily (although that was mainly by Chelsea's Loftus-Creek who was their stand out player). Chris David (a bit chunkier than I expected) was terrific when he came on - could he be the next Malbranque?

The Fulham CBs Jack Grimmer, who was MOTM in my view, and the 'brickhouse' Stephen Arthurworrey (on his first full start for the U21s) were outstanding. The other youngster who stood out was Lasse Vigen Christensen - he oozed confidence and quality.

Worrying to see Simon Davies having to come off after a bad tackle and Alex Smith, who seemed out of sorts all evening, come off injured as well.

All in all a really good game, completely controlled by Fulham. And a decent crowd, at a guess not far short of three thousand.

Well done the lads.

 

you seem to have a really good crop in the U18s (beat my Saints 5-1), you are not really known as a club that brings through young players but are there any youngsters that get you excited and are near to breaking into the first team?

 

I'm far from an authority (the gents above will know more than me) but we've got a fair few exciting talents (Minkwitz, Grimmer, Tankovic, Dembele, Burn to name a few) but none seem very close to the first team. Mind you, last time we started playing a talented youngster in the first team we got half a good season out of him before he joined Man Utd

 

best not to play them then, and you only got 5 mil for him. At least when Arsenal come calling for our youngsters, our chairman makes them pay through thier nose

 

Uhh, the fee was reported to be between 8-10 million, with more in add ons (International caps)

 

Forgot to say how good it was to see Mesca back. In the twenty or so minutes he had, you could see he had that we bit of class and still a fair bit of pace. Fingers crossed for the guy that he now gets a decent run of games.

 

Here are decent video highlights of the game -


[video=youtube;Lv7YiCyi6mw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv7YiCyi6mw&feature=player_embedded[/video]

 

Cottager
Thanks for the highlights of our game against Chelsea, it gives the 606rs who cant make these matches
an insite into our talented youngsters.

 

Nobody will for a while rosc. The next two U21 matches (against Blackburn and Sunderland) are behind closed doors at Motspur Park.

I wrote to the Club and asked if it was possible to get 'special' permission to attend but the reply was "unfortunately no, since our main onsite offices are open on those occasions". Not sure exactly what that means, unless it's an H&S thing.

Such is life!!