Trailing 2-0 after Chuk Obi’s opener was added to when Reggie Morris-Agyemang scored a controversially-awarded penalty just prior to the break, we upped our game in the second period and pulled one back 15 minutes from time, forcing an own goal by Connor Brooks.
But we were frustrated in our attempts to scramble an equaliser and ultimately slipped to our third successive Under-18 Premier League defeat.
Oliver Boast dragged an early shot across the face of goal and Tyler Tingey forced a near-post save from goalkeeper Lanre Awesu with a left-footed strike, but West Ham began to take the upper hand as the first half developed at Hotspur Way and went close a handful of times, notably through Lewis Beckford and Andre Dike, before taking the lead on 34 minutes, Obi latching onto a ball in from the right and seeing his initial shot blocked by Tingey before helping the loose ball over the line.
Reiss Elliott-Parris almost levelled moments later when he arrived to meet Boast’s excellent delivery in the box but was denied by Awesu, but when George Feeney was harshly adjudged to have fouled Dike in our box on a West Ham breakaway, Morris-Agyemang netted from the spot to double his side’s lead just a minute before half-time.
Feeney’s fine effort from another Boast cross was deflected away for a corner early in the second half while Armend Muslika later stung the palms of Awesu with a fierce shot before we finally got off the mark with a quarter-of-an-hour remaining, the keeper parrying Cameron Thomas’ angled drive off defender Brooks and back into the net. Both Boast and Cayon Hanson were left frustrating after being just unable to convert another menacing delivery from Thomas with a few minutes left while Boast subsequently headed a corner over the bar, but despite our late pressure we were unable to take anything from the game.
Reaction on SPURSPLAY
‘Work to do on the defensive side’
Under-18s Coach Jamie Carr was left frustrated with how the contest panned out, telling SPURSPLAY: “I think we started the first half really well and that was quite an encouraging period in the game for us, but after about 10 or 15 minutes we lost control and ended up conceding quite a lot of set-plays, which killed a little bit of our momentum and the feeling shifted, we ended up defending for quite long spells from there and never quite managed to get control of the first half again. It was disappointing to concede two goals, particularly with some of the stuff we’ve been speaking about recently with defending our box, so we’ve got loads of work to do on the defensive side of our game and we needed to tidy up some of our final third stuff today as well. We needed to show better quality in and around the box, we had loads of crossing opportunities, whether it was just getting the right side of our man or picking the right type of finish in front of goal, those are the bits that let us down a little bit today and in some games recently as well.”
Line-up
Spurs: B Irow, Thomas (Myrtaj 83), Agyekum (Vidal-Philbert 57), Hanson, Tingey, Tye Hall (c), Boast, Feeney, Elliott-Parris (Adewole 57), Muslika, Glancy (Salter 68). Substitutes (not used): D Thompson.