Under-18s share spoils after high-scoring draw at Chelsea

Ellis Lehane's second-half header secured a point for our Under-18s in a six-goal thriller at Chelsea on Saturday morning.

The substitute glanced home Harry Byrne's cross, getting us back on level terms after the Blues had overturned a 2-0 lead given to us by an early double from Reiss Elliott-Parris to lead 3-2 at half-time.

In another rip-roaring London derby, we had two further goals ruled out for offside while Chelsea hit the woodwork through Genesis Antwi, before a chance for us to win it in the dying seconds fell by the wayside as Byrne's attempt was saved by goalkeeper Hudson Sands deep into stoppage time.

In the end, the draw was probably a fair result as our youngsters continued their positive run of form, which included a 5-0 midweek home win over West Ham United to send us into the knockout stages of the Under-17 Premier League Cup.

Having missed the opening months of the season through injury, goalkeeper Dylan Thompson kept a clean sheet in that tie and came in for his first competitive start at Under-18 level at Cobham with regular custodian and captain Sam Archer now himself out injured. There was also a first league start for schoolboy Dexter Oliver in attacking midfield after his impressive two-goal display in last week's Under-18 Premier League Cup win at Leicester City.

We made a great start and were duly rewarded with two goals from Elliott-Parris in the early going. Having fired over the bar inside two minutes, the centre-forward made no mistake three minutes later after Byrne's corner flicked off Chelsea defender Antwi at the front post, hit a mass of bodies in the box and landed perfectly for him to blast in from six yards out.

Frankie Runham could only shoot wide of the near post after going through on goal in the home side's first real chance on 17 minutes but after Oliver went close following an excellent exchange with Elliott-Parris, the latter once again found the net on 28 minutes, collecting Oliver's pass and exhibiting some good footwork in the area before sliding a shot home through a crowded six-yard box via a slight deflection.

The Blues gave themselves a lifeline on 33 minutes when Antwi fed Sol Gordon and he fired home from the left angle, and six minutes later it was all square again when captain Jun'ai Byfield was deemed to have fouled Gordon in the box and Ollie Harrison slotted home the resulting penalty.

George Feeney thought he'd restored our lead when he touched home Tynan Thompson's cross, only to be denied by the offside flag, while Oliver's effort was cleared off the line by Lewi Richards as we continued to push forward but, four minutes into first-half stoppage time, the Blues took the lead when Antwi found space on the right and sent a low ball across into the middle for Reggie Walsh to arrive onto and ping into the far top corner.

The second half saw more of the same end-to-end action as Oliver's low shot was saved by Sands, while Thompson did well to stop Leo Cardoso's attempt on the counter-attack. Byfield headed in Byrne's free-kick just after the hour mark but was denied by the assistant referee's offside flag while Runham curled wide and Antwi's angled effort from the right side smacked off the crossbar as the Blues pushed to extend their advantage.

However, slightly against the run of play at that time, we hauled ourselves level as Lehane - on for Elliott-Parris a few minutes earlier - headed Byrne's free-kick beyond the advancing goalkeeper to make it 3-3 with 19 minutes remaining.

Centre-back Elijah Upson made a couple of important interventions including a good block from Harrison, who was then denied by Thompson from the resulting corner. Both sides went close in stoppage time, Ronny Moncur's header from Miracle Adewole's cross sailing over, while Cardoso fired just wide of the far post for the Blues. One final chance arrived for us in the final seconds when Byrne - by that stage playing in central midfield, having started the game at left-back - pulled the trigger on his left foot from the edge of the area, but Sands turned it away and the spoils were shared.

'Proud of our determination and character'

Under-18s Coach Stuart Lewis was pleased with the team's endeavours, particularly in the second half. He reflected: "I'm super proud of the effort, determination and the character of the team. I thought we showed what we're about today as a collective and as individuals. We started the game really well, went 2-0 up but we're a very young team with first-years and some schoolboys and we had a tough moment (in the first half), but we came through that and I thought the second half was one of our best footballing displays of the season and we could have gone on to win the game in the end. How we train and how we prepared for the game I thought was really evident in our performance levels in that second 45 minutes and I'm really proud of the performance."