Academy vs Manchester City

Virtuoso

Full Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2006
Messages
1,920
Location
London
Manchester City (H)
FA Premier Academy League
Trafford Training Centre, Carrington
6.12.2008, 11am

(Info taken from http://manunitedyouth.wordpress.com)

Looking forward to this one, it's live on MUTV from 10:55am. The Academy League North table currently looks like this at the top -

Academy League Table
Team P GD PTS
1 Manchester City 13 33 33
2 Liverpool 13 9 26
3 Manchester United 12 19 25

With a win at home tomorrow against City, we could go within 5 points of them with a game in hand. It would be the perfect response to the disappointment of the FA Youth Cup exit, but by no means an easy task as City's Academy have picked up from where they left off last season.
 
Will Welbeck feature, or will he be with the big boys?
 
Welbeck probably won't play for the academy again now we're out of the FAYC.

Starting lineup:

1. Gary Woods
2. Ryan Tunnicliffe
3. Joe Dudgeon
4. Kenny Strickland
5. Oliver Gill
6. Matt James (c)
7. Cameron Stewart
8. Oliver Norwood
9. Federico Macheda
10. Davide Petrucci
11. Robbie Brady
 
Manchester United starting line-up:

Woods

Tunnicliffe Strickland Gill Dudgeon

Stewart Norwood James Brady

Petrucci
Macheda

Subs: Ajose, Evans, Bryan, Eikrem

About 10 mins gone, 0-0. We have started off the better, Stewart had a good chance but it was blocked from about 8 yards out. Davide Petrucci produced some fantastic skill on the by-line (Berbatov-esque backheel past the full back) and flashed the ball across the box. James and Macheda have also been getting involved in the attacks well, strong start but need to capitalise on it now.
 
Lizard King said:
I really like what I've seen from Petrucci so far, I though he should have come on sooner in the FAYC.
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Agreed, he's got so much class on the ball. Effortlessly drifts past players and has brilliant awareness.

Our best effort so far was probably when Macheda closed down their defender Boyata and let fly with a good effort but it was well saved at the near post.
 
Ibrahim header, they've sucker punched us really. We've been the better side but didn't make the most of our chances - once again our defence does us no favours as a simple cross into the box leads to Ibrahim being unchallenged in the centre and he puts it away.
 
2-0 City - our defence has fallen apart, Mak just runs through the centre of our backline and we've got an absolute mountain to climb now.
 
Some really rank average defending again. Always feared for us against City and the strength and pace they have upfront and so its proved.
 
Their tails are up now, City are completely on top and finishing the half strongly.
 
Is he the son of our chief excutive David Gill?
 
No chance Tunnicliffe is offside there for my money, looks easily level (if not behind) the last defender.

Good start to the second half at least.
 
Federico Macheda gets booked, involved in a bit of a scuffle there. He gestured to headbutt Benali who made himself look like a real twat but diving theatrically and got booked for simulation.

Macheda shouldn't have done it, but you can see his frustration and how much he wants to win - his effort can't be faulted at all but it did boil over there for him. He's been subbed now and on comes Bryan.
 
Hard to be too disappointed, we matched a big, physically imposing side pretty much all over the park for about 85 minutes. The defenders just aren't good enough unfortunately, nothing can really be done about that overnight.
 
PS18 said:
No chance Tunnicliffe is offside there for my money, looks easily level (if not behind) the last defender.
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Too right. At 15 Tunnicliffe looks like a fine prospect.
 
x42bn6 said:
Sadly, yes.

In hindsight, we don't have Cathcart any more (on loan, of course), and he's hard to replace.
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Cathcart's too old anyway in fairness, he's 20 in February and hasn't played for the academy since the tail end of 06/07.

We've just had a couple of off years at centre-half the last couple of seasons unfortunately. That's not to write off Strickland, Wootton or Brown, they could easily develop late but there's no-one there like Cathcart or Chester in 06/07 or Jonny Evans a year or two before that. Like MUJAC said in the Youth Cup thread, we've got Tom Thorpe coming through who's been getting games for an England schools side with some good centre-backs to choose from, wouldn't surprise me to see him get a few games for the academy this season.
 
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