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Arsenal U21 v Stoke U21 Meadow Park Borehamwood Friday 20 November 19:00
by Andrew Crawshaw
The U21s get their league campaign going again on Friday evening with a match against Stoke at the Borehamwood ground. Kick-off is 19:00 and entry to the ground is free. OK you aren’t going to see the likes of Santi, Alexis and Giroud but you will almost certainly see TH14 (in his role as coach rather than player).
The U21s are playing in the second division of the league, due to a dreadful time last year . This year they are doing a lot better and so far have won all of the five matches they have played. They currently lie third in the table as the other teams have played either eight or nine.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | +/- | Pts |
| 1 | Derby County | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 19 |
| 2 | West Bromwich Albion | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 18 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 15 |
| 4 | Fulham | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | -1 | 15 |
| 5 | Swansea City | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 13 |
| 6 | Blackburn Rovers | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
| 7 | Aston Villa | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | -4 | 13 |
| 8 | Newcastle United | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | -1 | 9 |
| 9 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | -4 | 7 |
| 10 | West Ham United | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | -6 | 7 |
| 11 | Stoke City | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | -6 | 7 |
| 12 | Brighton | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | -10 | 4 |
The last game was in September against Wolves with the result a 3 – 2 win. The team that day was :-
Macey, Iwobi , Pleguzuelo, Kamara, Moore, Mavididi, Bola, Willock, Bielik, Hinds and Sheaf with Huddart, Robinson, Mourgos, Eyoma and Chatzitheodoritis on the bench.
The goals came from Iwobi, Mavididi and Willock.
The likely Arsenal team :-
Assuming that both Cech and Ospina return from their Internationals fit and well then Macey is likely to retain his place, if not Huddart will probably start in goal.
At Centre Back We will likely see Bielik (who seems to be preferred here to DM) and Marc Bola or O’Connor. Julio Pleguezelo is likely to be on the bench.
The full backs are likely to be Tafari Moore on the right and Tyrell Robinson or Tolaji Bola (no relation to Marc) on the Left. It would be good to see Chiori Johnson on the bench if he has recovered from his injury which has kept him sidelined for many months.
The midfielders will probably come from Glen Kamara (DM), Ben Sheaf, Chris Willock and Daniel Crowley following his recall from loan.
In attack it is likely to be a choice from Kaylen Hinds, Alex Iwobi (if he isn’t required for the First Team squad), Stephy Mavididi, Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Aaron Eyoma.
All in all it should be a good chance to check up for yourselves on the progress of the younger players.
The current weather forecast is dry, partly cloudy, a gusty easterly wind making it feel no more than 2C so if you are going wrap up well.
Live updates will be available on @Arsenal on Twitter from 18:55.
Directions to the ground are here
Anniversaries
- 20 November 1968. Arsenal 1 Tottenham 0. League Cup Semi Final. John Radford scored, as he did in the return leg which was a 1-1 draw, taking Arsenal through to their second consecutive final in the competition.
- 20 November 1971: Arsenal’s habit of letting in five continued in 5-1 away loss to Wolverhampton. It was Arsenal’s third successive defeat just six months after winning the Double.
The Untold Books
Woolwich Arsenal the club that changed football, is now available on Kindle at £9.99. For more details and to buy a copy please click here or go to Amazon Kindle and search for Woolwich Arsenal.
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal
COYG
I hope I will be able to follow the match a bit even if only on the twitter feed from Arsenal.
Recently seen some images of our Romanian kid Vlad Dragomir. He sure has a lovely eye for the space behind defenders and an amazingly delicate chipped pass in his feet. Of course only highlights but still not bad for a 16 year old kid playing with the U18 currently.
Walter, Vlad was one of four youth team players to train with the first team squad this morning. The others were Alex Iwobi (who may well make the bench again tomorrow), Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Joshua da Silva. I would therefore guess that neither he or Jeff will feature tonight.
I’m going this evening will be wearing my usual black leather cowboy hat. Happy to talk to any ‘Untolders’ and will try to post some updates as comments to this thread as the game unfolds.
Enjoy the game Andrew. Thanks for the write up.
Arsenal has some generic news, and some Ladies news.
Generic:
Arsenal won a conservation award.
Extra security at Tuesday’s CL game, come early.
From the Ladies:
Chioma Ubogagu’s contract ended, and she has not been re-signed. I ran across a tweet of hers since their last game (winning Continental Cup), and she seemed quite positive about Arsenal. Not sure why she wasn’t re-signed, and there is no information as to where she might be going.
Shortly after posting the story about Chioma, another story was posted saying that Arsenal Ladies had signed Dutch Danielle van de Donk. I would imagine that Arsenal has known for a while that they would not be re-signing Chioma, to have a replacement so soon.
In any event, I wish the Ladies team the best in their “off” season. Which is probably mostly related to working a job and doing work at the gym themselves.
2015 Player of the Season: Casey Stoney
2015 Champagne Moment came from Emma Byrne.
There is a photo thing about goals of the season, along with the above 2 (4) stories on the Arsenal website.
I don’t see anything about the 2016 season out yet. The 2015 season started with a FA Cup game 1 week into March, and a WSL game in the second week.
I remember Vlad Dragomir had been injured with a broken foot some 2-3 months ago. What a recovery it was, if he’s able to at least train again in such a short time.
Team tonight
Matt Macey (G), Ben Sheaf, Marc Bola, Glen Kamara, Krystian Bielik, Julio pLeguezuelo, Chris Willock, Alex Iwobi, Stephy Mavididi, Kaylen Hinds and Daniel Crowley. Subs Stephan O’Connor, Ryan Huddart (G), Aaron Eyoma, Donyell Malen, Ismael Bennacer.
Stoke – Gyollai (what a name for a keeper!), Renee-Pringles, Taylor, Molina, Banks, Watkins-Clark, Sidwell, Sbhenton, Waring, Waddington, El Ouiraichi. Subs. Telford, Kurasic (G), Moseley, N’Goy, Silva
Three minutes to go and it’s cold!
32 mins Stoke take the lead poor pass out from defence left Stoke 3-1 in terms of players, easy finish. Arsenal nearly get the goal back quickly but for a third good save by the Stoke keeper
Who gets mentioned, when.
Sheaf: 3, 13, 16
Beilik: 6
Pleguezuelo: 8, 12
Crowley: 16, 26, 26, 36, 38, 40
Macey: 18, 29
Iwobi: 20
Willock: 23, 24, 26,42
Malvididi: 24
Hinds: 36
10,3,6,8,4,16,10,0,18,11,20,23,1,2,24,10,36,2,216
10,3,4,10,0,11,1,2,10,2,2,16
And from the useless statistics department, it would seem that players like to get consecutive mentions at multiples of 2 and 20 minutes.
Hopefully Andrew wasn’t going to say something like that.
Crowley is getting the most mentioning in the twitter feed. Now if he can fashion or assist a goal, that would be even better.
COYYG!
Sorry, multiples of 2 and 10, not 2 and 20.
1 nil loss unfortunately.
We had enough chances to win quite comfortably but really put little on target in a meaningful fashion. On another day Iwobi could have had a hat-trick but not today. Stoke worked really hard and were, shall I say, extremely committed with their tackles. Sidwell I think was lucky not to be dismissed for a poor late and over vigorous tackle on Crowley late on and through the the game they all employed the ‘black arts’, little pulls and pushes, time wasting and diving. The referee was obviously auditioning for the PGMO as he saw very little.
One poor pass out of defence made the difference tonight, a harsh lesson but one necessary for the team to learn
For me the most impressive player on the pitch was the Stoke No3 Joel Taylor, he was fast, had good control and gave our defence a torrid time when he went forward. One to look out for!
The lads need to pick themselves up for Tuesday when they take on Dynamo Zagreb at 14:00 again at Borehamwood.
Thanks for the report Andrew.
Thanks for the report. Frightening to know PGMO are preparing another phase of selective visioned officials. Just hope the fraud squad find the money laundering amongst the FIFA badges.