Chelsea U18s 2-1 Spurs - Kieran's verdict

Kieran McKenna took plenty of positives from Saturday’s trip to Chelsea in the Barclays Under-18 Premier League, despite the 2-1 scoreline in the Blues’ favour.

With a number of Under-16s players involved on the day, we took the lead in the first half through Ryan Loft’s penalty, with Kazaiah Sterling and Loft denied by home goalkeeper Brad Collins after the break.

Chelsea scored twice in the last half an hour through Jeremie Boga and Ike Ugbo to win the game, but Under-18s Coach Kieran was pleased with a number of individual performances.

“We’re always disappointed whenever we lose a game because we go into every match to win it, but there were a lot of positives that we could take out of the game,” he said.

“Looking at the scholars who played, I thought Charlie Owens was outstanding in the middle of the pitch, while some of the Under-16s came in and did well.

“Dylan Duncan made his first start at this level and I thought Jaden Brown at 16 years of age and Japhet Tanganga at 15 were excellent as a centre-half pairing.

“So all in all there were lots of positives in terms of individual performances and in terms of the spirit that the boys put into the game.”