Oxford United’s under 18s enjoyed an excellent friendly win at Birmingham City yesterday as their recent good form continued.
The U’s, who are through to the southern final of the League Cup, travelled to take on the Blues and were 2-0 winners thanks to two goals from striker Dejon Noel-Williams.
United had to defend well after the Blues started strongly, but grew into the game and started to create chances before they took the lead when a good cross from captain James Cowan was met by Noel-Williams who flicked the ball into the bottom corner to beat the keeper with a neat finish.
The U’s played some bright football after that and doubled their advantage when Noel-Williams pressed a defender and then showed good strength to hold off his man and fire across the keeper to make it 2-0.
The home side rallied but some excellent defending from the United back four and plenty of hard work from those in front of them meant that they held on to their two goal advantage to register a very encouraging result.
Coach Leon Blackmore- Such told us
“The lads worked ever so hard last week on a very heavy pitch at Ardley in the Senior Cup so it was a good test to see if they could repeat that sort of commitment against a strong Birmingham side.
"We knew it would be a test but they did really well; we defended when we had to and created chances and it was good to see Dejon get a couple of goals to round off a really strong performance from everybody.”
United
Clayton (Harris 61), Carr, Berry-Hargreaves, Baker (McDonnell 61), Bryan (Chilcott 61), Collins (Mannings 61), Cowan (McCreadie 61, Heap, Lofthouse, James (Stevens 61), Noel-Williams.