Under-18s held by Seagulls

A late equaliser from Brighton & Hove Albion’s Shane Nti denied our Under-18s a third consecutive league victory as honours ended even at Hotspur Way on Saturday.

After another high-energy display from Stuart Lewis’ charges, Luca Williams-Barnett thought he’d secured us maximum points when he headed home Miracle Adewole’s cross to make it 2-1 with eight minutes left after Herbie James had cancelled out Nehemiah Oriola’s opener with a cracking strike at the start of the second period.

But with 86 minutes on the watch, Nti slid home from inside the box for 2-2 – and after Williams-Barnett hit the bar with a free-kick in an attempt to restore our lead, it was only a last-gasp save from Sam Archer to deny Darius Lane that prevented the visitors from securing a complete turnaround.

After making wholesale changes for the midweek defeat to Leeds United in the Under-18 Premier League Cup, coach Stuart recalled the majority of the players who started last weekend’s 5-1 win at Fulham, with centre-back Malachi Hardy returning from suspension in the only change from that match.

Neither side managed to get a grip of the game early on but after Ellis Lehane put an angled effort wide for us, it was the Seagulls who took the lead in the 24th minute following a break down the right flank, with Lane crossing low across the face of goal for Oriola to tap home at the back post. Ronny Moncur had our best chance of the first half four minutes later after latching onto Williams-Barnett’s deft through ball, but he was denied one-on-one by Brighton goalkeeper Alfie Mansell.

Brighton almost scored a carbon copy of their first goal just before the break but Archer spread himself well to block Nti’s back-post effort. And we were rewarded soon afterwards as within seconds of the restart we were on level terms, James shrugging off his marker and lashing home a superb shot from distance via the underside of the crossbar.

Both sides had close-range shots blocked in the box, Nti’s effort for Brighton kept out by a mass of bodies in our six-yard box before defender Callum Mackley got in the way of Williams-Barnett’s shot at the other end, but we looked commanding whenever we had the ball and made our pressure pay when Adewole’s brilliant cross from the right was glanced home by an equally-impressive header from Williams-Barnett in the 82nd minute.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the game out as we left Brighton too much space at the back in the last few minutes – Nti’s downward header was claimed by Archer but less than 60 seconds later, with four minutes of normal time left, substitute Jesse Middleton squared for Nti to plant a low shot into the bottom corner from 10 yards out.

Moments afterwards, Williams-Barnett’s free-kick clipped the crossbar on its way over as we sought to regain the lead and while we generally were able to remain on the front foot, Brighton almost nicked it in the dying seconds when Lane wriggled through on goal, but his effort under pressure was repelled by the advancing Archer as the final whistle sounded.