U17’s lose final but impress

I had one eye on the Addicks U17 team today. Their Premier League Cup Final against Tottenham was on Charlton TV and I watched it while I worked.

The Addicks ended up losing 5-2 but put up a gallant fight and for long spells of the game put their Cat 1 academy opposition under a lot of pressure.

The game was held at Stevenage’s ground, which Spurs use for academy games and was watched by 1,242 with a fair few Addicks present.

Spurs’ team was notably bigger and more physical than ours but there were a couple of Charlton stand-outs and none more so than Manu Wales who scored both of our goals.

Spurs started well, took the lead and in the early stages looked as if they would overpower us, but Charlton playing in a style not too dissimilar to the first team got on top and equalized through a Wales’ shot.

For a while Spurs struggled to deal with our press and we were the better team, but Spurs scored a good goal to take into half time a 2-1 lead

We began the 2nd half well, passing the ball effectively and looking threatening. We hit a post before an error led to Tottenham’s Luca Williams Barnett scoring his third goal to make it 3-1.

Yet we came back into it again with Wales getting a very good second, and we almost had a third before running out of a bit of puff and allowing Spurs to canter to a very unflattering win.

A great experience for these lads playing a much higher level of opposition. On this showing I’d suggest there is a lot to look forward to from Jason Pearce’s team.