Derby's Disciplined Loss

MCFC U18s 3 - 2 DCFC U18s

Derby County lost their discipline and were reduced to nine men in the second half; the first dismissal was a second bookable offence and the other one was a straight red card for a dangerous two footed challenge. The problem that Derby will look at is that they had taken a two nil lead but City came back with a brace from Ahmed Benali and a Robbie Mak penalty.

After City's disappointing second half display in the FA Youth Cup semi-final against Arsenal this week that cost us our first defeat of the season they seemed to have a hangover from that result as very much like last week away at West Brom we sat back too much and allowed Derby to come at us and they made us pay when the referee judged that Dedryck Boyata unfairly challenged the Derby forward; but interestingly five minutes previously Benali was caught running through to a ball in the area and the referee did not give anything. The Derby player was cool enough to send Eirik Johansen the wrong way to score.

Just before the half hour mark City were two nil down when Derby forced the play through the centre right and the ball came over to the left side of the box just a couple of yards out and Reece Wabara was over run and despite a valiant effort his clearance went into the roof of the net.

This second goal seemed to kick a bit of life back into City and they managed to pull a goal back in the forty first minute when Greg Cunningham forced Derby on the back foot on the left before playing a lovely weighted ball for Benali to run onto in the area where he found the bottom right corner of the goal. City however have Johansen to thank for keeping that same score line as they went into the half time as he got down well to turn a deflected shot wide of the post.

The scoring of that goal just before half time showed real belief within the team as they dominated the second half and the referee correctly awarded City a penalty in the forty eighth minute when Mak was hauled down by the back of his shirt whilst he was trying to turn in the area. Penalty taker Jack Redshaw stepped up to take the penalty after being forced to re-spot the ball twice; but the Derby goalkeeper correctly dived the right way to push Jack's well taken strike away.

City however did not have to wait long to draw level when Mak who was showing he was far more up for it after the first half disappointment was able to torment the Derby defence before sending a lovely reverse ball that split the defence for Benali to take and smash past the goalkeeper.

Derby then had their mad ten minute spell when one of their players fouled Chris Chantler for his second bookable offence and was shown the red card; then the Derby fullback lunged with both feet off the ground and made contact with Greg Cunningham and unusually the referee was strong enough to show the straight red card.

Derby worked hard to contain City but were facing a losing battle as the referee awarded a penalty for a push on captain Andrew Tutte in the area. With Redshaw not being on the field any more Mak took the responsibility but even though again the goalkeeper dived the right way, Mak stuck the ball with such venom that he had no chance of saving the shot.

City will be even more happy when they found out that Manchester United drew nil nil at home with Sheffield United to leave City seventeen points clear of United with six games to play. This means that realistically we only need a draw at Sheffield United next week to retain our title due to our plus eighteen goal difference over United.


City: E Johansen(GK), Wabara, Cunningham, Tse, Boyata, Tutte(Capt.), Elabdellaoui, Benali, Mak, Redshaw(Guidetti 64), Chantler.

Subs: Wood(GK), Mitchell, Helan, Cieslewicz.


The U16s came from one nil behind to draw one all.