City March On at Everton

EFC U18s 1 - 3 MCFC U18s

City travelled to Everton's new training and academy facilities at Finch Farm having moved away from their Netherton site this season. Goals from Abdi Ibrahim, Alex Nimley-Tchuimeni and Dedryck Boyata after Everton had reduced arrears to two one in the first half.

City's march towards retaining the league group title continues apace with yet another decent victory at a team that always have the ability to cause you problems.

With Benali away on England duty in Portugal, City brought in Elabedallaoui to play wide right in the virtually unchanged line up. As per usual the rotation of Captain between Kieran Trippier and Andrew Tutte took place with Tutte wearing it today.

City should have taken the lead in the ninth minute when Greg Cunningham was fouled near the edge of the area and the referee tried to play advantage but when Greg was caught again he was left no option but to point to the spot. Nimley-Tchuimeni took the responsibility; but he did a lot of fanning about on his run up which indicates a placed penalty and so if the goalkeeper guesses the right way will nine times out of ten save them if he gets a good footing when he dives; and this time he did save it.

The goalkeeper after making the decent penalty save will probably want to forget City's first goal five minutes later as he allowed an Ibrahim header to loop over him from the edge of the area when the goalkeeper was no more than two yards out the header coming in after good work by Nimley and yet another dangerous cross from Trippier.

Everton could have conceded another penalty five minutes later when the Everton defender's arm came in the way of Nimley's shot but the ball came out to Trippier who sent in a lovely chipped cross to Nimley who evaded the defender to send in a low hard shot that went under the dive of the Everton goalkeeper.

Finch Farm has some great pitches but is very open there and so is very susceptible to a blowing wind and so Everton's midfielder had a decent header from a free kick that was wind assisted as it beat Joe Clegg in the City goal to cut City's lead in half.

The second half was quite physical as some over zealous challenges were not punished and the referee only booked the goalkeeper when he came out and handled out of the area to deny a one on one with Robbie Mak and so the game lost some of its fluidity. Late on, Everton went against the spirit of the game when a ball was kicked out through injury and they then made an attacking throw in that led to a corner.

City secured the points however when Cunningham was fouled just inside the Everton half on the left and Trippier with his trusty right foot whipped in a dangerous free kick over the Everton defence to the far post where the Kaiser himself was lurking and Dedryck made no mistake with a powerful header past the goalkeeper as he has done so many times before this season; seven in the league and one in the cup at Portsmouth.

City's lead at the top of their group has now been extended to twelve points with nine games remaining as Stoke did us a favour by beating Manchester United at Carrington today. City travel to Stoke next Saturday in their December re-arranged fixture.


City: Clegg(GK), Trippier, Cunningham, Wabara, Boyata, Tutte(Capt.), Elabedallaoui, Ibrahim, Mak(Redshaw 65), Nimley-Tchuimeni(Guidetti 81), Chantler.

Subs: Tse, Helan.


City's U16s have now gone over ten games without a victory as they drew nil nil.