A first journey to the Emirates stadium for most CUFC fans, the train from Royston seemed to be a “football special” with most of the passengers wearing Black & Amber!
A 15 minute walk through the back streets of North London from Finsbury Park station to the stadium, passing the old Highbury ground. Some took the Tube! As you would expect it is a pretty impressive stadium.
£6.60 for a pint of Camden beer, and a similar price for a hotdog with onions, both were quite good. No pies, burgers or chips! Apparently there were some “street food” outlets further round the concourse.
Arsenal started the match on the front foot, and it was clear their players are very talented and skillful, and it seemed their prediction of seeing them score plenty of goals (https://www.arsenal.com/news/fa-youth-cup-our-story-so-far) would come true having scored 13 goals in their 3 cup games so far.
On 8 minutes a powerful run from deep was not stopped and after some inter passing the ball was laid back for Nwaneri to shoot home from just outside the penalty area. 0-1.
More Arsenal pressure without really threatening our goal, then U’s came into the game more, and on 24 minutes the equaliser from a corner, which turned out to be a headed own goal. 1-1.
The half continued in the same way, Arsenal looking dangerous going forward but our defence held firm. Half time: 1-1.
U’s started the second half much brighter, and should have taken the lead 3 minutes in when a free kick into the 6 yard box found the unmarked Njoku who could get a good enough touch to steer the ball into the net, instead it went over the bar.
U’s continued to probe while defending solidly when Arsenal broke out, Ismaili curling a shot just over the bar.
U’s took the lead on 68 when a corner was half cleared, the ball played to the unmarked Yearn at the back post and his side foot shot crept in at the near post with their keeper expecting a cut back. 1-2.
Unfortunately the lead did not last long. An Arsenal player ran into our defender after he had cleared the ball just inside our penalty area, but the referee decided it was a penalty which was scored by Cozier-Duberry despite a good effort by Finch diving to his right to get fingers on the ball but couldn’t keep it out.2-2 after 72 minutes.
More chances at both ends as the game opened out, Yearn having a 25 yard shot hit the top of the bar, McConnel shot at the keeper, and Njoku had a shot deflected over. Arsenal had another penalty appeal but their player clearly stumbled.
2 minutes into the 6 added on and heatbreak as an angled cross found Rosiak whose sidefoot hit the near post then Finch to get over the line. 2-3.
Their keeper showed a lack of class by running to and screaming at the away fans. I can understand he would be pleased, but to run to the away fans rather than the home fans is antagonistic and unnecessary. He wasn’t subjected to any banter with the fans either.
A final chance came from a corner but the ball would not go in the net.
Our players were applauded for many minutes at the end of the game by the nearly 3,000 U’s fans in the crowd of around 7500, and they with Jimmy Unwin and the support staff were a credit to our club.
Arsenal certainly knew they had been in a very close match, and the result could have gone either way. Their players are very talented, and they play in the current Arsenal style to try to outpass the opposition.
They were not afraid to bring a player down if they got past, and if it had been a league game there would have been a number of bookings for their players. I suspect they are paid more than our first team players!
I also think they have more chance of a career in football at CUFC than at Arsenal as very few youngsters get to the first team at most Premier League teams. Lets hope many of our youth players join Yearn in getting to play in our first team.
On the train back we heard of a young U’s fan being struck on the head by a bottle thrown by home fans. Apparently a couple of their fans who were sat near the away fans were ejected, I don’t know if it was from the bottle throwing incident. Not what I expected at a youth match!
Reactions and highlights here: https://www.cambridgefansunited.org/arsenal-u18-away-reactions/