Under-18s defeated by Cottagers in seven-goal thriller

Three second-half goals saw Fulham claim victory over our Under-18s in a rollercoaster of a game at Hotspur Way on Saturday morning.

Both sides led over the course of the 90 minutes but after losing both of our centre-halves to injury in the first period, the Cottagers were able to recover from a 2-1 half-time deficit to register a 4-3 win, substitute Macauley Zepa firing in the decisive goal 18 minutes from time.

We’d earlier come back from a goal down to lead through Damola Ajayi and Mikey Moore’s penalty, with Ellis Lehane also on the scoresheet to make it 3-3 in the second period. Moore then hit the post in a great chance to fire us back ahead before Zepa strolled through our makeshift defence to settle the contest.

Goalkeeper Charlie Warren made good stops to deny Fulham’s Jayden Quashie and Tom Olyott inside the opening four minutes, but in between those chances he was powerless to prevent Olyott from firing Fulham ahead after the attacker found space at the edge of our box for a low shot with just over 60 seconds gone.

Luca Williams-Barnett was a threat for us on the left as we played our way into the game, but it was Moore whose delivery from that side almost led to a goal for Lehane midway through the first half, but the striker couldn’t connect in the middle with the goal gaping. Moments later, we lost the services of influential centre-back Archie Baptiste – formerly known as Archie Chaplin – through injury, with his centre-half partner Maeson King, who stepped up well in Baptiste’s absence for the remainder of the first period, unable to come out for the second half because of an injury of his own.

By the time King went off, though, we’d played our way into the lead amid a spell of dominance. The equaliser arrived on 29 minutes when Williams-Barnett and Moore combined on the left to set up Lehane in the middle, his prod towards goal was repelled by goalkeeper Dino Kaiser and Ajayi was on hand to tuck inside the post. Warren subsequently made a sharp double-save to deny Olyott and Tom Wingate at the other end while Han Willhoft-King’s rising shot was comfortably taken by Kaiser before Moore put us ahead from the penalty spot in the second minute of first-half added time following Alfie White’s foul on Williams-Barnett.

Midfielder Willhoft-King had to drop back into defence for the second half alongside substitute Calum Logan and Fulham capitalised early in the second half, Farhaan Ali-Wahid advancing towards the box and firing routinely inside Warren’s left-hand post on 51 minutes, before the same player made it 3-2 to the visitors five minutes later following a diagonal run into space and lay-off by Olyott.

Warren swatted a deflected, looping effort from Fulham substitute Harley Platel off his line, but we responded well and equalised on 65 minutes when Williams-Barnett played Moore in down the left side and his cut-back was turned high into the net from close range by Lehane. And two minutes later, the game could have been turned on its head once more when Lehane pulled down a great ball from Williams-Barnett and teed up Moore in the box, but after taking a touch, the latter’s strike cannon back off the inside of the post.

It was a missed chance we’d come to rue as, six minutes later, Zepa exposed some of the frailties of our makeshift defence as he evaded two tackles coming in from the right channel before slotting inside the near post to restore his side’s lead. Only a good save from Warren down to his right prevented Platel from extending Fulham’s lead in the closing moments, but we stayed in the game in spite of the blow of conceding and almost grabbed an equaliser in the 95th minute, but substitute Dante Orr couldn’t steer his header from Ajayi’s free-kick on target and with that went our chances of taking any points.