A frantic end to today’s game at a cloudless Landore, but our U18 couldn’t pull back a 2-3 deficit against a tactically disciplined Fleetwood.
We dominated long stretches of play, Fleetwood defended earnestly and broke ruthlessly to keep us at arm’s length.
Excellent skipper’s performance from Harlan Perry, who made one and scored the other and constantly spurred on his team mates with direction and a battling, skilful personal performance. Substitute Harvey Gray got our first goal with his first touch on entering the field of play after an hour.
Today, our U18 team didn’t really get the reward its performance and efforts deserved.
Although they are struggling in the Northern division of the PDL2, Fleetwood came with a very clear gameplan: keep a very disciplined 4-4-2, a deep defence and look to break whenever the opportunity presented itself. Their coach was much-travelled Mark Yeates, who made 500+ League appearances with the likes of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough and Watford, among others.
We started with the same formation, although were fluid throughout the game, in which new coach Mason McClelland tried a variety of different personnel and positions to try to break the visitors down. McClelland was up against one of his former club sides.
We started: Tom Wright; Kaven Bloniarczyk, Ben Phillips (s – Elis Thomas 60m), Carter Heywood, Wahab Ojetero (s – Harvey Gray 73m); Billy Clarke (s – Alfie Jones 60m), Milo Robinson, Harlan Perry (captain), Callum Jones (s – Caio Ifans 46m); Aidan Higgins (s – Bobo Evans 44m), Ollie Anderson.
Harlan Perry again captained the side from the heart of the midfield, Milo Robinson alongside him. Briton Ferry Llansawel academy’s Ollie Anderson was given another trial appearance at centre forward.
There were early chances for Anderson and Kaven Bloniarczyk as the Swans made the early pace. Wahab Ojetero shot wide after exchanging a one-two with Anderson on the edge of the Fleetwood area.
Fleetwood exploited vulnerability down our left to work the ball across the area, enabling Taylor to score on 20 minutes. Currie spurned a free shot on goal a minute later, shotting straight at Tom Wright, but that was pretty much the last we saw of the visitors’ attack until the cusp of half-time.
For the Swans, left winger Callum Jones was lively, seeing a lot of possession and always looking to cut inside to shoot. He had a couple of efforts from distance go wide or saved and caused the Fleetwood defence several anxious moments in and around the area. Anderson had a couple of sights on goal and Jones saw his own header hacked off the line as we dotted the Fleetwood goal. Although the visitors’ keeper flapped at one corner, Fleetwood otherwise knuckled down, kept their shape and made it unscathed to half-time, even threatening to go further ahead with a scuffed effort from Currie that didn’t trouble Wright.
Jones – who seems to be getting used sparingly – left play at the interval, with Caio Ifans joining proceedings. Caio gave a highly creditable 2nd half display, although we missed the unique unpredictable edge Callum brings. Aidan Higgins took a knock just before half-time and was replaced by Bobo Evans.
3 minutes in the 2nd half, Fleetwood went close again with a header from a corner by Cherry that was scrambled clear by Wright.
Ifans and Ojetero were pushed up to give width and depth to the Swans attack, resulting in a string of crosses that we couldn’t convert. From the other wing, Bobo Evans sent over a deep centre that centre halves Heywood and Phillips combined to have a header bounce off the top of the Fleetwood crossbar. Both sides made changes on the hour as Fleetwood continue to hold out. We continued to press but couldn’t fashion clear chances. The inevitable happened when Haselden broke clear on the right and delivered a teasing cross that substitute trialist centre forward gleefully finished at the far post.
Swans substitute Harvey Gray flicked home a reply within 2 minutes after wonderful work by Perry opened up the visitors’ defence. Sadly, we couldn’t build on this, as pressure by the bustling Fleetwood trialist striker forced Alfie Jones to hurry a back pass that Tom Wright couldn’t deal with and Fleetwood were almost immediately 2 goals back in front.
Perry had further efforts and we adapted and adopted an ambitious 4-2-4 formation to get back on terms. We finally pulled back to 2-3 on 90 minutes, a clean left footed shot from our skipper after the Fleetwood keeper had pushed out a Bobo Evans effort.
6 minutes of added time saw increasingly frantic Swans attempts to get level – Caio Ifans going closest with a shot that was deflected up and over the goalie and onto the roof of the net. It wasn’t to be.
Our overall play was impressive – we perhaps lacked a clinical cutting edge and were a little ponderous in a couple of areas – but the players adapted well to changing tactics and could count themselves unlucky. Fleetwood were understandably elated at seizing the points.
Harlan Perry and Milo Robinson kept prompting and probing throughout, Caio Ifans gave a battling contribution replacing the ever dangerous Callum Jones. Centre backs Ben Phillips and Carter Heywood always looked confident on the ball and Kaven Bloniarczyk had a strong game at full back and later in the centre of defence.
Scoring: Taylor 0-1 20m; Trialist sub 0-2 73m; Gray 1-2 75m; A Jones OG 1-3 77m; Perry 2-3 90m.