An excellent all-round performance today for our U18. We turned around an unexpected 0-1 deficit to quickly recover and run away 4-1 winners over Coventry City.
Once more, we operated 4-4-2: Sam Seager; Osian Williams (s – Carter Heywood 72m), Kiel Higginson, Brogan Popham, Billy Clarke; Aidan Higgins, Jacob Cook, Yori Griffith (s – Milo Robinson 34m), Josh Pescatore (s – Kai Rhodes 60m); Thomas Woodward (s – Alex Godfrey 60m), Morgan Bates.
Unused sub: Isaac Dudding.
Trialist Morgan Bates continued up front with Thomas Woodward.
The first half seemed non-stop and high tempo. Josh Pescatore was looking dangerous on the left, frequently getting beyond the Coventry defence, although also occasionally prone to drifting offside. We had 2 goals ruled out in the opening 4 minutes.
Yori Griffith, returning after 4 months out, looked as though he’d never been away – breaking quickly and with slick ball control to put the visitors under pressure. We had a number of shots blocked and it looked only a matter of time before we pressed home our dominance.
The events weren’t linked, but – with Griffith taken off after the half hour as a precautionary measure – Coventry suddenly broke our defensive line, Marshall breaking clear only to be upended by a mistimed tackle by Kiel Higginson to concede a penalty. Up to this point, Coventry had barely posed any kind of threat. Ambursley confidently converted the penalty, giving Sam Seager no chance.
Into added time, Pescatore delivered a teasing cross from the left and Aidan Higgins was able to head home from close range for a deserved equaliser right on half-time.
The pace of the game continued to be quite frenetic into the 2nd half. 2 minutes after Shepherd had a long range effort pushed wide by Seager, we took the lead with a wonderfully fluent move involving Robinson, Pescatore and Higgins in the buildup. Morgan Bates was on hand to sweep home the resulting centre to put the young Swans 2-1 up.
3 minutes later, Tom Woodward did great work to bully Jack James off the ball quite fairly and beat the goalkeeper from inside the Coventry penalty area to give us a 2 goal advantage.
Just after the hour Coventry missed a golden opportunity to keep in the game when Shepherd scooped a dangerous cross over an open goal. That was pretty much the end of the visitors’ attacking threat. Shortly after that, Morgan Bates got his foot to Godfrey’s corner to give the score a more convincing feel.
Bates went close on numerous occasions to clinch what would have been a well warranted hat-trick. We made a number of changes, with all substitutes playing their part. Kai Rhodes in particular beat his opponent routinely to create chances. Rhodes and Alex Godfrey had taken part in the first half of the U16s match taking place against the same opponents on the pitch next door (the U16s won that game 5-0, so Coventry had quite a tough afternoon in the Landore sunshine).
Difficult to single out individuals in what was a really strong team display across the park. We played some delightful football. Kiel Higginson was unfortunate to concede the penalty, otherwise had his most compelling display in the back 4 alongside the equally assured Brogan Popham. Very encouraging also to see Yori Griffith slip so smoothly back into action.
One-time Bournemouth full back Josh Gowling coached the Coventry side.
Goalscoring: Ambursley pen 0-1 (37m); Higgins 1-1 (45m); Bates 2-1 (56m); Woodward 3-1 (59m); Bates 4-1 (64m).
Have a browse of images from the match in the Swansea City Under 18 v Coventry City Under 18 match gallery.
Feature Image Credit: Majestic Media