Carroll, Rickets and Jeacock on target as under 18s win
While the Oxford United Development Side were beating Aston Villa 3-1 in a friendly yesterday the under 18s were mirroring that game with another 3-1 win against their Villa counterparts. Goals from Canice Carroll, George Jeacock and Drew Ricketts gave the United youth team a fine win and Leon Blackmore-Such told us:
“Because of the development game we arranged this friendly for the same day and the Villa side was mainly their first year scholars while we had Lewis Hayden and Jack Stevens step up to the Under 21s. It was a good chance for us to gain experience and play another Academy side who like to zip the ball around. We have a lot of players with good ability in our side so we knew it would be pretty open.
“For the first 15 minutes we were getting to grips with the opposition and we got caught out and conceded the first goal. But from then on we started to really dominate with Canice Carroll playing the ball out from the back and Malachi Napa having his best game for us in a number 10 role just behind Joe Hartley and Jordan Graham with George Jeacock up top.
“We looked more organised than we have for a while with Drew Ricketts moving to right back alongside Cian McCormack and Canice. Drew got forward really well and was involved in all three goals.
“The first was a penalty where Drew won the ball and got it into George who span in behind and was fouled, and Canice made it 1-1 from the spot.
“That was after 35 minutes and on 40 we were ahead when Drew intercepted and got George in to a one on one to finish well and put us ahead at half time. We made a few tweaks at the break and said to be a bit more patient and not force things. We made good chances in the second half ; Graham Bryan, George and Malachi all had shots and we were on top. We made it 3-1 from a set piece played in by Jordan Graham and Drew finished on the half volley.
“What was pleasing was the way we saw the game out. We had talked a lot about having a winning mentality and we showed real maturity in the last part of the game, which was very promising. There were lots of positives- Shandon Baptiste was very influential and had a good game once again, but really they all played well and this was a very sound performance.”
United
Agboola, Ricketts, McCormack, Carroll, Welch-Hayes (Tuttle 75), Baptiste, Humphries (Bryan 65), Hartley (Hastings 60), Napa, Graham, Jeacock