Under-18s suffer Villa defeat

A brace from Aston Villa's Brad Burrowes consigned our Under-18s to their first league defeat of the season at Bodymoor Heath on Saturday afternoon.

The wide man fired home the opener in the only real noteworthy moment of the first half in the 17th minute but while we upped our game in search of a reply after the restart - Luca Williams-Barnett's shot being saved and Ellis Lehane hitting the post - it was Burrowes who struck again with 10 minutes remaining to seal the win for the hosts.

Villa's Elijah Briscoe had the ball in the net early on but saw his effort chalked off for offside, but shortly afterwards his team-mate Burrowes took control, cutting in from the right side and curling inside the far post on his left foot to give Villa the upper hand.

We had a lot of possession during the first period but were unable to do anything meaningful with it, so a good start to the second half was key and we certainly saw an improvement as Lehane and Tynan Thompson fired over the bar.

Our best spell of the game arrived around the 70-minute mark amid a flurry of chances - Williams-Barnett's shot-on-the-turn was well saved away to his left by goalkeeper Sam Lewis before a good ball across the face of goal from influential substitute Ronny Moncur ended with George Feeney's back-post effort being kept out by the custodian. Seconds later, Lehane went closer still as his fine strike from distance cannoned back off the woodwork, but Williams-Barnett could only put the rebound over the bar after it came to him at an awkward angle.

We were punished 10 minutes from time when Burrowes fired home from the edge of the box but while both goalkeepers had to make important blocks in the final moments, there was to be no comeback on a disappointing day for our youngsters.

'In the second half, we dominated the game'

Under-18s Coach Stuart Lewis felt we should have capitalised on the moments we were in control. He said: "I thought we opened the game quite confidently in the first 10 minutes, we had control, but we didn't carry that momentum on into the remainder of the first half, lost too many one-v-one duels, were just a little bit late into positions and across the board it wasn't to the level that we demand and that we've set in the last few weeks. That was disappointing, but in the second half we dominated the game although unfortunately got hit on the counter-attack.

"We didn't score when we had control of the game and it was disappointing not to get on the scoreboard. The final moment was lacking, which we've been really good at in the last few weeks where we've scored plenty of goals in the league, but there were some positives to take from the second-half performance - we played to our identity, were more on the front foot, more dynamic with our movement and we caused them some real problems in the second half but were just lacking the final moment to get on the scoreboard. I think if we'd have got one, that could have become two or three but we didn't, so we'll reflect on the game and we'll go again in the Under-17 League Cup at home to West Brom on Tuesday."