Under-21s lose out at Exeter

Our Under-21s were left to rue missed opportunities as Exeter City secured their place in the knockout stages of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy with a 2-0 win at St James Park on Tuesday night.

Having matched the Grecians for long periods and produced some tidy passages of play at times, we went close either side of the interval through Oli Irow and Leo Black but found ourselves trailing when Millenic Alli slammed home from inside the box on 56 minutes.

We continued trying to get at the League One side in search of something to take with us on the long journey back to north London but a stunning free-kick in stoppage time crashed home by Jake Richards extinguished our hopes of a comeback, putting the south coast side into the next round with two wins from two in Southern Group G and leaving us needing results to go our way on matchday three in November, where we'll face Swindon Town, if we're to progress with them.

Exeter made 10 changes from their win over Stevenage at the weekend and our young charges matched them for the most part. Both sides had half-chances in the opening stages but our best opportunity of the first period fell to Irow midway through it, the forward blasting a right-footed effort off-target after being teed up inside the box.

The hosts were thwarted by the offside flag on numerous occasions throughout the first half but when Alli did manage to beat the trap 10 minutes before the break, he was denied by a superb save from Luca Gunter, with Ed James sending a glancing header wide a few moments later.

Gunter claimed Ben Purrington's header on his line just seconds after the interval before another golden chance for us as Damola Ajayi picked out Black with a cross into the box, but the midfielder miscued his header from six yards out and the ball bounced wide.

Unfortunately, we switched off in defence a couple of times in the moments that followed and got away with one when a mistake at the back gifted possession to Alli in the box but he fired over the bar. However, we weren't so lucky on 56 minutes when a corner was nodded down to the same player and he planted home to give his side the upper hand. Gunter made a good low save from Sonny Cox and Theo Cutler found the side netting while Ajayi tried his luck from distance at the other end but despite seeing a lot of the ball, we couldn't truly trouble goalkeeper Shaun MacDonald. Gunter got low to keep out Pedro Borges' effort on the counter-attack late on but was caught out in the 94th minute when Richards unexpectedly pinged a wide free-kick high into the net to seal the win for his side.

Match data

Goals: Exeter City - Alli 56, Richards 90+4.

Yellow card: Exeter City - Richards 90+2.

Referee: Craig Hicks.

Venue: St James Park, Exeter.

Weather: Light cloud, light winds, 13 degrees.

Attendance: 2,890.