U21s: Nottingham Forest vs United

top1whoisman

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Friday 26 April
Kickoff 19:00 BST
Live on MUTV

A big game in the chase for that 12th spot. Will be interesting to see what we do with player selection around this weekend. The U18s face Sunderland tomorrow in a relatively meaningless game and our next PL2 match is already on Monday at lunchtime.

Personally I hope we use these fixtures to push players up age groups. The U21s looked much better against Spurs with some of the younger boys in the team and there’s a lot of interesting lads in the U16s.

Wonder if JJ Gabriel doing warm-ups with the Premier League Cup winning side is an indication that he would even make his U18s debut this season. Would be pretty crazy but who knows. Could also just be a way to convince him to stay with us. But that has very little to do with this fixture so I’ll stop the rambling.


11) Brighton 19 -3 28
12) Blackburn 19 -13 27
- - -
13) Forest 18 -3 26
14) United 18 +10 25
15) Palace 18 +1 25
16) Southampton 18 +1 24
- - -
17) Stoke 19 -16 23
18) Aston Villa 18 -6 22


So a win tonight would effectively guarantee us a playoff spot. That would also move us to the 11th spot before the last round of fixtures.
 
Man City finished their PL2 campaign today by the way. 18 points from 20 matches, -18 gd. 4 wins, 6 draws, 10 defeats. 50 goals conceded.
 
Nice to see Bennett, Kamason & Mather starting. Devaney and Scanlon too. Good young bench as well.

 
Last edited:
Had totally forgotten that Warren Joyce is the current Forest U21s manager.
 
I really wish Odeyele does more at this level. He has been a regular starter whenever I watched him and has always been quiet.
 
saik said:
I really wish Odeyele does more at this level. He has been a regular starter whenever I watched him and has always been quiet.
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Couldn’t agree more. Didn’t go his way at FGR after a promising time at Altrincham. Should be bossing these games.
 
Stoke, Villa & Southampton all behind at the moment. Think we’ll clinch the playoff spot tonight. Now we just need more points to get inside the top 12.
 
We’re struggling to keep hold of the ball and string some passes together. A physical battle so far.
 
Apart from McNeill’s solo effort we haven’t created anything so far. Forest doing well with their pressing and they’re threatening our box on consistent basis.
 
Harrison's passing has been a bit iffy today. He has already given the ball away twice and that pass there put his teammate in a spot of bother.
 
24’

McNeill with a decent low effort inside the box but the Forest keeper makes a comfortable save.
 
saik said:
Harrison's passing has been a bit iffy today. He has already given the ball away twice and that pass there put his teammate in a spot of bother.
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Yeah seems the communication is missing too. A couple of times he’s made the pass to a midfielder just as their markers are closing them down from behind.
 
We haven’t been able to get our midfielders on the ball in the opening half an hour. Let alone the forward line. The hosts are working very hard to press us but we need to keep the ball moving quicker and find some answers.
 
39’

Brilliant through ball from Sam Murray, Mather fails to find his teammates in front of the goal.
 
40’

McNeill tries to lob it over the keeper from a distance but it’s easy for the gk in the end.
 
43’

The hosts almost take the lead they deserve, but Harrison comes out and makes a good save to prevent it from happening.
 
Hope we raise our own pressing in the second half to win the ball higher up as we’re really struggling to build it up from the back.
 
50’

Important block from Murray. He’s been decent in the last two games I’ve seen.
 
Well - Kamason certainly wont be MOTM - he has generally been really poor as a right-back at U21-level over the last month 4-5 games
 
Forest’s forward line of Osong, Nadin & Konaté are causing us a lot of problems. Very strong physically and all decent on the ball too.
 
56’

Another big save from Harrison. Our PotM by some distance. And that’s with him having a challenging night with his passing.
 
top1whoisman said:
Haven’t seen many issues with it in the U18s. Less space and time in these games and he’s getting exposed. But I agree he’s been poor tonight.
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He seems so unaware of what is behind him and fails to block crosses - I don't know how much he has played in that position before this season - but you can see the same when McAllister is playing right-back
 
I wouldn’t take McNeill off so perhaps we should try him and Biancheri as a front two and go more direct.
 
Ekeke said:
Attacking players other than McNeil who has worked hard, have been quiet
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Been a busy week for them tbf, especially the ones who've been pulling double duty with the U18s. Wouldn't be surprised if a bit of fatigue was kicking in as they won't be used to such busy schedules yet.
 
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