Report and response for the Under-21s: Leeds 0–2 Chelsea
Mark Robinson, the head coach of Chelsea Under-21s, was pleased with his team’s performance in the second half of their 2-0 Premier League 2 victory away against Leeds United.
The document
The Blues headed north in an effort to recover from their previous Thursday’s close loss to a formidable PSV Eindhoven team in the Premier League International Cup at Stamford Bridge.
And after a strong start at Thorpe Arch, Robinson’s players shown no signs of a hangover. The first chance came in the opening minutes through Zak Sturge’s left flank forcing Charlie Cresswell of Leeds to make a last-ditch clearing.
But we didn’t have to wait long for Leo Castledine to bring about the breakthrough.
The mastermind was Michael Golding, who advanced from midfield prior to his
Chelsea maintained their possession advantage, although they were open to counterattacks from the home team. Luca Thomas of Leeds nearly equalized, but Ted Curd’s post caught his shot.
The second pivotal moment of the first half included Curd, who was outstanding for the youthful Blues. The youthful goalie made a fantastic save to his right to save Max McFadden’s low shot, giving Chelsea the lead going into halftime.
After a pinpoint pass from Deivid Washington, Zain Silcott-Duberry rounding Leeds keeper Harry Christie to go close to a second goal, the visitors started to take control of the game.
However, some superb last-ditch Leeds defending denied Silcott-Duberry’s shot.
The Blues were getting into their stride now, and following a sharp Chelsea breakaway, Washington forced a superb stop from Leeds captain Christy. Castledine nearly scored his second goal of the afternoon as well, but his angle was too tight and he shot into the side netting.
It appeared that Chelsea would have to wait anxiously for the last few minutes to secure the points at that point.Instead, though, we were rewarded for our performance in the second half when Ronnie Stutter was found by substitute Genesis Antwi as he broke down the right.
The forward, who scored against PSV as well, took a nice first touch before blasting his eighth goal in ten league outings into the Leeds goal. It completed a fantastic victory for on the road.
The response
Robinson was pleased with his team’s development as the game progressed, despite acknowledging that they had defensive difficulties at times in the first half.
“We had some excellent forward play in the first half,” he remarked. Even if they didn’t result in obvious opportunities.
However, we believed that we were somewhat flexible during the shift. They thus had a couple too many opportunities as a result. During that first half, we weren’t happy with our structure behind the ball. We were pleased with our attacking play, though.
I felt we played a pretty good second half, so I was proud of us. In my opinion, their final opportunity was fleeting.
“We just had to wait a long time for the second goal to come,” said our highly professional team. We had lots of opportunities early in the second half, and the score would have been much more emphatic if we had been more clinical. However, we’re happy.
He groups
Curd; Hughes, Gee (c), Williams; Sturge (Samuel-Smiths 90+2), Rak-Sakyi, Silcott-Duberry (Antwi 82), Golding; Stutter, Castledine, Washington (Tauriainen 72) are Chelsea’s players (3-4-3).
